Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 Grateful to be literate August 11, 2008
This lovely book makes me grateful I can read. Each beautifully written story works as a set piece, but what impressed me so deeply about the collection is how each new story builds on the previous one, until the accumulated power nearly takes you off your feet. What an accomplishment. Olive is blunt in appearance and character; she is unlovely and often mean; and yet we cannot help but want to understand her, owing to the shimmering force of Elizabeth Strout's empathy. --Monica Wood
Luminous, lovely, one of my favorites ever August 6, 2008
One of my favorite books of all time, one I was sorry to get to the end of. This is a collection of short stories which adds up to a kind of novel, since Olive Kitteredge shows up in all of them and is the main character in several. Strout's writing is luminous and gorgeous; her dialogue sounds real, her descriptions of the landscape build the mood appropriately--understated, in language that is original and vivid. The mood is often painfully melancholy, but not always:
"She leaned forward, peering out the window: sweet pale clouds, the sky as blue as your hat, the new green of the fields, the broad expanse of water--seen from up here it all appeared wondrous, amazing. She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life she way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed."
Strout portrays characters who sound like people you know. It's been said in the reviews: Olive sounds like a monster in the beginning, but by the book's end, you've gotten close to her soul and you can't get enough of her. She's a prickly woman: no-nonsense would be an understatement. In her heart is a mixture of love and great bitterness; overall, she's a stoic, disliked by many in her small northeastern town, and the feeling is mutual. But some of her acquaintances do know her well enough to appreciate and value her, and her husband--the devoted, also stoic, Henry--indeed loves her even though she most often behaves harshly toward him, annoyed by his unflappable sweet nature. She has her reasons for the sharp edges.
The story would seem to be irredeemably sad, but keep reading. Strout's other book, Abide With Me, was about pain and redemption, and that theme is repeated here, only much more readably.
 It's Ok August 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this book has some very beliveable truisms- a type of insight into the human condition that I appreciate. I looked forward to picking it up and reading it. That said, it is another book that is really multiple intertwined stories and some of the side stories were a touch dry and dull. I also felt the book was a little depressing. If you are in the mood for a more melancholy read this is a fine pick. Like I said, I liked it, but I didnt close the book and say- wow! that was great! Its probably a 3.5 star rating. Good perspective, just sad, and the the side stories are occasionally distracting.
COPING July 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Elizabeth Strout has created a wonderful character in Olive. She is acerbic, a royal pain to herself and others, and often just terribly wrong. But she is also touchingly vulnerable. I've used the last story in the collection with a short story group of (mostly) older people. They were moved.
Olive Kitteridge July 30, 2008
I have little patience with short stories, but I found Olive Kitteridge profoundly moving. Elizabeth Strout provides glimpses of Olive through the eyes of her neighbors and townspeople and as the protagonist of several stories. I grew to love Olive and wept and laughed with her as her adventures mirrored so much of my own life. Strout subtly, gently, and easily finds the reader's inner soul and flaws as Olive and others wend their ways through seemingly mundane yet complicated day-to-day routines.
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