That’s not to say this is an easy read there are parts that made me uncomfortable but Strout never sugar-coats. I realize that not everyone likes Olive, and if you’re one of those readers, this book might not be for you. She’s not nice, and she’s difficult to get to know. She can be kind but she’s also stubborn and judgmental. Olive is my favorite kind of character she’s complicated and flawed. It’s particularly poignant in that Olive’s point of view is that of a woman in her seventies and eighties, and that’s a perspective we rarely get in fiction. It’s primarily about aging, and parents’ relationships with their children, and marriage and death and second chances. It’s about life in the small town of Crosby, Maine. Strout writes in a deceptively straightforward style that covers so much that is important and real. What is this book about? My first thought is: everything.

Because she saw that her life – her life, what a silly foolish notion, her life – that her life was different, might possibly be very different or might not be different at all, and both ideas were unspeakably awful to her, except for when the waves took her high and she felt such gladness, but it did not last long, and she was down again, deep under the waves, and it was like that – back and forth, up and down, she was exhausted and could not sleep. It was as though waves swung her up and then down, tossing her high – high – and then the darkness came from below and she felt terror and struggled. I have yet to read a book by Elizabeth Strout that didn’t have me highlighting passages all over the place. Strout dives right in with what is absolutely the best description of a baby shower I’ve read.

The second chapter begins with “Two days earlier, Olive Kitteridge had delivered a baby” and from there on I couldn’t put it down. To begin this book with a character who barely knows Olive kind of threw me. The sequel begins with Olive mourning the death of her husband and struggling to maintain a relationship with her son Christopher and her grandchildren.Īctually – and this is maybe the one weak point in the book – it opens with a character, Jack Kennison, who isn’t terribly sympathetic, based on his attitudes towards his gay daughter and recently deceased wife.

Olive, Again is written in Strout’s signature style of introducing new characters in each chapter so that the book feels like connected short stories rather than a novel. Great news for Olive Kitteridge fans - author Elizabeth Strout has published a sequel and it is fantastic.

Olive again review