Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 454
 book review September 5, 2010
Linda L. Losse (Ann Arbor, MI USA)
I would order from them again, the book was new and sent to me quickly.
 Well written, but... September 1, 2010
Occasional shopper
Elizabeth Strout has written a strong, emotionally stirring series of tales. I appreciate the way she believably weaves together the lives of her characters. Strout certainly has a gift for keenly observing human behavior of all ages and dispositions.
That said, I didn't find the book outstanding enough to receive the Pulitzer. It also seemed that some of the characters could have been omitted entirely and there would not have been much of an impact on the book as a whole (for example, the alcoholic pianist and the kleptomaniac daughter of a minister).
While Olive was the central character (but not obviously so), I don't think she necessarily had to be the focus of the book. The title of the book seems a misnomer. The book calls to mind a modernized, somewhat spicy version of Our Town.
I did enjoy reading Olive Kitteridge, but again, I do not think this book is Pulitzer material. It's somewhat slow-moving, but there is a market for this writing style. I don't think I would recommend Olive Kitteridge for those who want a central storyline and more action, but some readers may enjoy it very much for the fly-on-the-wall view of life in a small coastal town and some beautifully written scenes.
best book I have read this year August 31, 2010
Cheery Dog (ATL GA)
I bought this book last year and saved it - until last week. Just finished it today - was breathtakingly, at times, heartbreakingly, beautiful. I have never read anything by Elizabeth Strout - just bought Amy and Isabel. I bet I will not be disappointed. She is a magnificent writer.
 Old grumpy people August 24, 2010
Maria (Carrboro, NC United States)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a book about old grumpy people whining about their lives. All the things you don't want to read about getting old. Skip this one.
Songs of Experience August 21, 2010
M. Fetler (Sacramento, CA)
Blake's poem "London" sums it up: "I wander throe' each charter'd street ... And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe." Substitute small-town, ingrown, petit bourgeoise Crosby Maine, and you have it.
Strout's lovely phrasing folds in layer upon layer of bitterest irony. For example, a suicidal man, watches a waitress leave a cafe and reflects: "... as she moved toward the dock, he watched her shoulders, the long back, her thin hips as she moved - she was lovely, the way a sapling might be as the afternoon sun moved over it." Only the clinically depressed could so artfully twist the knife.
Love in its many dysfunctional forms is the reader's compass: excess of love, too little love, forbidden love, fear of love, infidelity, jealousy, narcissism, etc. It is love with a wonderful unexpected twist. Strout's maladroit lovers are not cliche, fresh-faced, rash and brash, twenty-somethings. Her lover's are past middle age, retired, twice-burned, fat, angry, fearful and depressed. They are a TV watching, fast-food-eating generation who married in the 1960s, had children in the 70s, retired in the 90s, and are now fading.
Olive Kitteridge, our prickly, self-righteous heroine, finally learns her lesson: "What young people didn't know ... that love as not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn't choose it." .... Her eyes were closed, and throughout her tired self swept waves of gratitude - and regret." Regret, because now lonely, she neglected her dead but loyal husband, Henry. Gratitude because in her old age she is having an affair, even though with a man both she and Henry once despised - an Harvard educated republican from New Jersey, who retired to Crosby and disdains the locals. It is advice to the young, from the old, to be disregarded. Thick and bitter irony.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 454
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