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Loading... Olive Kitteridgeby Elizabeth StroutLibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendations
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Beautifully written; all stories are connected. I had mixed feelings about Olive, but in the end, she is honest with herself and learns about the fragility of life and the wisdom in accepting love where one finds it. Everyone in the small town has secrets, including Olive. Perhaps secrets are just part of life. (  ) bkatz | Dec 23, 2009 |  The best book I've read this year. The structure - a portrait of a woman and a town told in 13 stories - is so much more powerful than a linear story. People reveal themselves in bits and pieces over time and Olive does too. I know Olive and the people of Crosby ME. My life is full of them. Incredibly moving, powerful and true. ( ) dlgoldie | Dec 21, 2009 | This book grabbed me with its first story, about the friendship between Olive Kitteridge's husband, Henry, and the young woman who worked at his drugstore. Strout captures private moments and musings beautifully throughout the book, and creates vivid settings with a few, well-chosen words. She understands the ambiguity of feelings and imperfections that every husband, wife, son and daughter experiences. The title character is revealed to different degrees in each story, and the book covers most of her adult life. She is only one of many well-developed characters, but the fact that much is unexplained makes the book all the more interesting. The stories were written over a long period of time and published here and there, but as a collection they hang together well, with a couple of exceptions (the exceptions are why this is a 4 1/2 and not a 5). For me a book is great when I want to start reading it again as soon as I finish it, and I keep thinking about it long after reading it. This book had both of those effects on me. (  )1  jyangelo | Dec 5, 2009 | Olive Kitteridge is a good book, well written. Its reach is impressive, yet its grasp is perfectly firm. This is a series of related short stories, all of which refer, overtly or no, to the character Olive Kitteridge. Olive is one of the most arresting and memorable literary figures I’ve “met” recently, but she is surrounded by a dazzling panoply of others. Strout is masterful with characterization, and does much with little in each story. We see Olive most often through the eyes of others–her husband, neighbors, and son. Yet we also see them through her eyes, and its a dizzying feat of perspective, pulled off so well I didn’t think to wonder how Strout managed to create umpteen authentic voices. The stories progress in linear time, though with flashes to the past. Each can stand on its own, yet together they form a complex whole. Olive is a woman of strong opinions, and she often irritates those around her, including the reader. Yet I found her by the end irresistible. Olive’s honesty, her pain, and any hard-earned joy she’d won were a pleasure for me to read about. ( )1 Girl_Detective | Dec 3, 2009 | bostonbibliophile | Dec 2, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:54 -0400)
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