inkdrinkerjfr 's review for:

Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout

4.0

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For a story that deals with intensely emotional topics, this book is remarkably understated. The lack of drama bothered me at first, being conditioned to more explosive action in movies and on TV, but in the end I really appreciated the subtlety. To me it expresses that the details that end up as significant in one's life don't have to hit you over the head like a brick or come with an exclamation point. I would have liked more development on certain characters, like Tyler's daughter Katherine for one. But the descriptions that initially seemed perfunctory might have served to emphasize an overarching lesson of the book - that people often judge eachother without collecting enough information to have a fair and complete picture of the whole individual.