Reader Score
88%
88% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 30 reviews on
"Just as wonderful as the original . . . Olive, Again poignantly reminds us that empathy, a requirement for love, helps make life 'not unhappy.'"--NPR
ONE OF PEOPLE'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Prickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is "a compelling life force" (San Francisco Chronicle). The New Yorker has said that Elizabeth Strout "animates the ordinary with an astonishing force," and she has never done so more clearly than in these pages, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth during a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the unforgettable Olive will continue to startle us, to move us, and to inspire us--in Strout's words--"to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can."
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, Vogue, NPR, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, Esquire, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, The New York Public Library, The Guardian, Evening Standard, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, BookPage
Oprah Winfrey is a talk-show host, author, and philanthropist.
I had to make my first trip to Maine the moment I started reading Elizabeth Strout’s “Olive, Again.” So for our @oprahsbookclub discussion, I took some book club members there to discuss the book and have some good ol’ lobster rolls 🦞📚#ReadWithUs https://t.co/7bpfrr8gpj
On a book that had a profound impact on her life: [It] was so powerful…It really makes you think about living with intention and how you want to live now and fast-forwarding several decades and thinking about how I'm living now is going to affect how I look back at my life later.
"Strout dwells with uncanny immediacy inside the minds and hearts of a dazzling range of ages: the young (with their confusion, wonder, awakening sexuality), the middle-aged (envy, striving, compromise), the old (failing bodies, societal shunning, late revelations). . . . I have long and deeply admired all of Strout's work, but Olive, Again transcends and triumphs. The naked pain, dignity, wit and courage these stories consistently embody fill us with a steady, wrought comfort."--The Washington Post
"In thirteen poignant interconnected stories, Strout follows the cantankerous, truth-telling Mainer as she ages, experiencing a joyful second marriage and the evolution of her difficult relationship with her son. In her blunt yet compassionate way, Olive grapples with loneliness, infidelity, mortality and the question of whether we can ever really know someone--ourselves included."--People (Book of the Week)
"A magnificent achievement on its own terms . . . We see Olive acquiring a view of herself, and coming to recognize as valuable the other people who grant that vision. In the process, she shares in the alchemy that she continues to perform for us and elicits our unexpected, abiding love."--The Boston Globe
"Strout has created one of those rare characters . . . so vivid and humorous that they seem to take on a life independent of the story framing them."--The Guardian
"The lovable, irascible Olive Kitteridge is back. . . . In this novel--set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing Maine, ravaged by opioid addiction and economic neglect--Strout wields great pathos out of life and all its attendant tragedies."--BuzzFeed
"Strout aims the spotlight on her wry heroine and the characters of Crosby, Maine, in another book that's sure to have you flipping pages long into the night."--Bustle
"Olive, Again returns to Olive and the town of Crosby to do what Strout does best: find meaning in the tiniest and most mundane details of everyday life."--Vox
"Strout has said that she doesn't know why readers like Olive so much, except that she is complicated, like all of us. But I think we all have had an Olive in our lives whom we never got to know. Mine was a teacher named Gertrude. It is Strout's genius to reveal them to us in all their idiosyncratic glory. Olive, again? Oh yes, I do think so."--Ann Treneman, The Times (UK)