"Weather" by Jenny Offill

Here's a book that I feel sure would only improve if it were sipped slowly . . . yet I couldn't help but gulp it down.

Weather is the story of librarian and amateur therapist Lizzie, who lives in an unnamed city which I assume to be New York. I use the word "story" loosely; it's really more of a slice of life, though I wouldn't refer to it as completely plotless. It's a brief book, and perfect for a reader with a short attention span as it's basically a series of clipped, loosely-connected paragraphs. A quick glance back through the book doesn't fully confirm this impression, but it's almost as if each little paragraph could stand on its own as a nanobook.

Lizzie has a small family (a husband and young son) and is "enmeshed" with her recovering-addict brother (which I suppose is the new way to say "codependent"). She is also hyper-focused on the eventual effects of climate change (hence the book's title), though she expends far more mental energy on how she will deal with its eventuality than on the possibility of effecting any sort of change to prevent or slow global warming.

Maybe it's difficult to gather this from what I've written so far, but I really enjoyed reading this book. Not in the way that I loved Once Upon a River; the two experiences were entirely different. But this is one of the rare books I would like to read again sometime, especially now that I know what to expect. Because, unlike a plot-driven book that is all the better for its unknown twists and turns, I feel like a second read would make it easier to focus on the writing and the ideas rather than wondering what might happen.