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A review by book_concierge
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
4.0
Strout returns to the character featured in her Pulitzer-Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. Olive still lives in Cosby, Maine, still has a strained relationship with her son, still is remarkably clueless about how her abrupt manner affects others, and yet…
I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read the first book. Suffice to say that while Olive wasn’t young in book one, this book continues her story into her mid-80s.
The book is character-driven and Strout excels at revealing these characters by their actions and conversations with one another (or with themselves). Like most of us, Olive lives an “ordinary” life – she keeps her house, runs errands, goes to baby showers, converses with people at the grocery store, has her children come visit, finds a new friend in an expected setting, and faces the waning years of her life with as much dignity as she can muster.
I just love Olive, even if I don’t much “like” her. I can’t really say she’s mellowed much as she ages, but there is something so real, so vulnerable, so recognizable in her. I think there’s definitely some of me in her (or some of Olive in me).
I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read the first book. Suffice to say that while Olive wasn’t young in book one, this book continues her story into her mid-80s.
The book is character-driven and Strout excels at revealing these characters by their actions and conversations with one another (or with themselves). Like most of us, Olive lives an “ordinary” life – she keeps her house, runs errands, goes to baby showers, converses with people at the grocery store, has her children come visit, finds a new friend in an expected setting, and faces the waning years of her life with as much dignity as she can muster.
I just love Olive, even if I don’t much “like” her. I can’t really say she’s mellowed much as she ages, but there is something so real, so vulnerable, so recognizable in her. I think there’s definitely some of me in her (or some of Olive in me).