I don’t know how to feel about this book.

Each sentence is beautifully written, but disjointed from the others. It’s almost stream-of-consciousness, but then there is a plot twisted into it. It rambles, yet somehow no words are wasted.

The storytelling is not my style, I’ve concluded, but I can’t discredit the author’s way with words. Give it a shot. It’s so short that if you don’t like it, it’s still a book read and didn’t eat up too much of your time. ( )

The first few chapters wowed me. Offill's writing was crisp and she had a talent for observing and writing about people. For example, who could forget the wife's experience of hiding something she dislikes at a restaurant and then find out that the restaurant's staff didn't care? However, I feel that the tone of the book somehow changed after the first few chapters, which affected my enjoyment of the book. ( )

An amusing book about adultery; educational too! I never knew that research shows men tend to have affairs after their oldest child turns six, our evolutionarily reptilian brains thinking that genetic investment is able to carry on without us now, so time to go create a different one. Or that Buddhists believe there are 121 states of consciousness, only 3 of which involve misery or suffering, though naturally we spend most of our time just in those three. I have no confirmation that these are true, mind, but they sound legit.

The book's heroine never intended to get married, and the book never intends to give the reader much of any idea about the husband. He exists, he is outlined, and then he cheats, and we're given the wife's reaction along with a steady stream of amusing factoids. Interestingly, the perspective shifts from first to third person once this trouble occurs, as if the character steps back from this clichéd situation to wryly observe the difficulty she's gotten herself into. "If only you'd stuck to your plan to be an Art Monster," her third person omniscient voice might say to her first person character, "this totally could have been avoided." Happily, however, the first person wrenches back control of the narrative at the last. It's always better to have loved.

There is a comparison in the style of this book to Renata Adler's Speedboat in that it is told in little episodic chunks. But Offill is funny; Adler is arch. Offill has a plot; Adler does not. Between the two I'll definitely take Offill. ( )

Good writing, but no narrative coherence; i just didn’t get the point. Experimental style isn’t for me ( )

Simpel dingetje. Ontroerend een beetje. Makkelijk mee weggekomen van de schrijfster wel, vind ik. Dagboek van een meisje/vrouw.
Begrijp de buzz errond wel niet. ( )