Lucky me to receive an advance copy and I buzzed right through it. Olive Kitteridge is back! Here’s the character that readers find vexing yet come to yearn to know. Her irascible personality sends family and friends running even when the reader understands that it’s Olive’s armor in order to face the world as she sees it. Now she’s a widow, her son lives far, far away and aging has taken over.
The book written in thirteen chapters are stand-alone stories, but linked through Olive’s character. She remarries, delivers a baby, get a pedicure, and wrestles with her own loneliness. Best of all, we meet again with characters (Amy and Isabelle, the Burgess brothers, etc.) from Strout’s earlier books inviting me back to this author’s collective works.
Through Olive, Strout visits the struggles of growing older and confronting one’s mortality. This section comforted me after the death of my mother this past spring. We all should read this and it will give us much to discuss.

I love Olive Kitteridge. If you've read the first Olive book, you need to read this. Olive is so true to herself as she deals with her grief from the death of her husband, her life as a widow, and eventually her marriage as she enters a new phase of her life. She continues to get into various adventures that make the reader want to laugh and cry. She is a genuine character and is totally lovable.
Elizabeth Strout has created a memorable character that inspires. She has taken all the pains and sufferings of growing old and has interspersed them with joy and happiness.
This is a great read, especially for women who are dealing with growing older.

Upon starting this book with excitement I realized that I had not actually read the first one, though I have read other works by this author and admire her observations on life and humans. As someone who works in the care of the elderly I found the perspective on aging a little forced, but Olive’s fierce independence makes me smile. The ability to see ourselves is powerful even if it takes 80 years to do it. Death changes all of us, and the encounters that each of the characters have with that reality feels like the thread binding it all together. At times the shift in perspectives was jarring, but not enough to the diminish the overall drive of the story.

I received an advanced copy in exchange for my review

In a knot, in a knot!

Scrunching, twisting, sighing instead of hopping on my pogo stick. It just didn’t do me like the last one did (sung in a bluesy voice). Oh, this book is good, very good, a 4-star read in fact, and it’s sitting on my 2019 Runners Up shelf as nice and happy as it can be. So it’s nuts to sound so disappointed. It’s just that the magic wasn’t there like it was in Olive Kitteridge, the moments when the words and the sentences dance in my head and turn me into a crazed pogo-sticker. Maybe it’s just me. My expectations were high as the sky, and I should have followed my mantra and lowered them. We all know that Olive Kitteridge is an insanely hard act to follow.

Man, I must stop this. Stop complaining and just talk about all the good. Olive, oh Olive. She’s so vivid and cool! And of course, there’s always the question: why do we love her like we do, when she really is so gruff and selfish? There’s Strout, doing her thing, making us like her! As Olive ages, she becomes way less obnoxious and cantankerous. In fact, she has MELLOWED! She even helps people, which, if she did in the first book, I don’t remember.

A few times, Olive asks people what their life is like. Although this is an excellent way to try to draw out people’s secrets and get them to reveal their souls (and a good way for the author to get character info out to the reader, lol), I’m not sure Olive would really have been that interested in other people to ask them this question. But I go back and forth on this. Olive is less self-absorbed; and she’s lonely. So isn’t that a recipe for reaching out to others?

Olive also, with age, becomes more and more self-aware. Strout does that thing of getting into Olive’s head so well (going into everyone’s head, actually), in a way that pulls out the heart. She goes into thoughts, and out comes feelings.

As always, Strout cuts to the bone. You’re going along thinking the characters are boring when slowly they start to reveal their inside story, which is usually a sad one. We just have to look close enough, and Strout makes it easy by giving us the magnifying glass.

What I love the most about the stories is how deep the conversations become, which makes the characters so real and complex. Olive wants REAL, and Olive gets it. There’s often a pattern—niceties are exchanged (so at first it looks like it’s the same old inane and mundane chit-chat that’s going nowhere), and then before you know it, the characters, often strangers or acquaintances, are talking about how they feel: disappointment with their spouses or kids; fear of aging and death; loneliness; grief; regrets; their mistakes or bad luck. Strout makes these conversations happen seamlessly, and it never seems fake.

Wouldn’t it feel richer if all our own conversations were that real and honest? Sometimes I wondered if Strout was stretching it—would people really open up that much? But she’s so skillful in her setups, I buy it. Any little doubt I have gets eaten up by a big I Don’t Care Anyway. What we end up seeing, and what’s so touching, is the rich connections people make, and the love (and pain) that exists within families. All of the thirteen stories end with poignant moments, which is always satisfying, even if there isn’t necessarily closure.

This book picks up right where Olive Kitteridge left off: the first story here is about Jack, who was in the last story in the earlier book. As with the first book, Olive stars in her own stories but she often makes cameo appearances in others. For example, in one story, her only appearance is when she passes by a woman buying a painting at a street fair. She mutters aloud something along the lines of “That’s crap!” And just those few words affect how the buyer viewed the picture once she got it home. How could it not? We get to see Olive through the eyes of people in her town as well through her own eyes.

One of the reasons that Olive is so endearing is that she hates pretension and prejudice. So it’s funny when Jack calls her a reverse snob. A comment like that (and there are several in this book) stopped me in my tracks and made me think about Olive’s outlook, and outlooks in real life. I love it that Strout stirs the pot and makes you think.

As I started each story, I was panting; hoping for more scoop about people I met in the first book. Instead, new people were constantly being introduced, which got annoying as I had to remember a bunch of new names. But if Strout had continued with some of the original characters, I would have had to reread stories in Olive Kitteridge to keep track, which would have been a royal pain—so, careful what I wish for. We did get follow-ups on some people, and I slurped up their stories like I was dying of thirst. Ha, and one nasty person from book 1 got theirs in book 2, and that’s always oh so satisfying! Way to go, Strout!

I could bring out the Complaint Board, but I just don’t want to write the words “Complaint Board” all bold-face and vivid. It’s Strout! Come on! I just can’t!

So, about that missing magic…I’m trying to figure out why I said this book doesn’t have the magic that Olive Kitteridge does, and here are the reasons I came up with:

--The language just doesn’t make the hair on my arms stand up. Making sentences sing is an art, and with Strout’s simplistic sentences, it’s even harder to do. I’ve read Strout’s My Name Is Lucy Barton, and I had the same problem—just some little thing in the language didn’t click with me. Maybe it seemed over-simplistic. With Anything Is Possible and Olive Kitteridge, the language absolutely mesmerized me. Hair on my arms standing up all over the place.

--The stories here don’t have as many surprises or twists.

--The stories are WAY more depressing. Readers over 65 beware: the talk of aging, illness, and death is pretty pervasive.

--Too much introspection and philosophizing at the cost of plot.

I had fewer favorite stories in this collection, and even they seemed a little less powerful than the earlier Olive stories.

Hands-down favorite story:

“The Poet”—About a conversation between Olive and a former student who became a famous poet. OMG is this a great story! Ends with quite a zinger! I want to go reread that one right now!

Runners-up include:

“Cleaning”—A disturbing story about a teenager cleaning houses.

“The End of the Civil War Days”—A house with duct tape that divides territory, and a daughter with a secret life.

“Labor”—Olive’s thoughts while a mom-to-be opens presents at a baby shower are priceless. The scene made me laugh and it made me nod. Oh, poor Olive! And there’s a big, unexpected event, which changes the story entirely.

Despite my complaints, I recommend this book. Strout is a master storyteller. Her stories are intense, her characters are vivid and complex. I highlighted a gazillion sentences (and paragraphs), which I only do when I’m super engaged and impressed. There’s so much wisdom in this book!

If you loved Olive Kitteridge, you’ll love this book. You don’t have to read Olive Kitteridge first, but I think it makes the experience of reading this one a little richer.

I hope hope hope that they do another TV series based on Olive’s life. But they’d absolutely have to get Frances McDormand to play Olive again—I think hair and makeup artists could make her age perfectly.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

Elizabeth Strout has said she never intended to bring Olive Kitteridge back. Thankfully, Olive came and found her and she was not to be ignored.

Strout's new novel continues the story of one of the most beloved literary characters ever to inhabit a page. As with its forerunner OLIVE KITTERIDGE, Strout directs our gaze upon the fictional community of Crosby, Maine.
In a series of intertwined episodes, ordinary moments illustrate the resiliency of ordinary lives.

Told with tender simplicity these vignettes of love and loss provide a narrative for our aging anti­-heroine. Eschewing the notion that females must be likable, Strout imbues Olive with quirky fallibility. Blunt, stubborn, opinionated, and difficult, Olive can be a tyrant or she can be kind. Yet, Olive is not judged by her creator but rather encouraged to be. Endearing tics (the dismissive hand wave, the irritable "phooey to you" and exasperating "Ah­yuh") paint a picture of a woman to whom one feels a kinship.

Rippling beneath the surface of each scene is the desire for love. In OLIVE, AGAIN, this desire can be embarrassing, awkward, stiff, imperfect, uncomfortable, lost and found again. Strout is a master, revealing there is love to be mined for and examined in the smallest actions.

As Olive navigates old age, the author explores what it means to become old. The loneliness and challenges faced when tasked with a long life. With Olive, there's no neat packaging of her existence, no self­important legacy, no tidy happy ending. Olive examines her life as she lived it: matter­of­factly with a pinch of regret and a healthy dose of acceptance. Were it a song it would be melancholy, as a story it is an absolute gift.

***Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of OLIVE, AGAIN in exchange for a candid review.***

Up to the previous Olive Kitteridge book. Filled with quirky but poignant characters that make you laugh and cry at the same time. Elizabeth Strout has a real knack for getting at life’s experiences and making you think about what matters.

Yep, Olive is back ... older, wiser?, larger and definitely crabbier, and honest to a fault. I have very mixed feelings about Elizabeth Strouts’ books. I’m not very fond of the two Olive books but I really liked Anything is Possible and My Name is Lucy Barton. I just have a difficult time warming up to Olive.

Do you like short stories? Do you like chapters that provide a snapshot into someone’s life and then never have that person referenced again until maybe at the end of the book? Then you will love this book. Having read the prequel to this book and seen the movie,Olive Kitteridge , I knew what I was in for with the main character. I love that I could visually see Frances McDormand and wave her hand over her head as she walks away . I guess I would have enjoyed this book more if it had been more about her and less about all the disparate stories of others.

Olive is back with all of her grumpy and yet insightful ways! Strout continues to evolve Olive into an even wiser and crankier woman who makes you laugh and cry at the same time. In Crosby, Maine, Olive enters her 80s, and with the keenest sense of observation, makes us see through her eyes the many challenges of a long life: sex, family, loneliness, loss of independence, surviving while those around your are dying, and ultimately coming to terms with your own mortality. Along the way, she also gets entangled with another colorful cast of local characters, giving us her insights into everything from delivering a baby to sitting in first class for the first time, and eventually to sneaking out at 6am to buy Depends while at a senior living facility! For those of us with aging parents who may live near or far, Olive's later life insights of family, moving out of one's home and watching one's body start to deteriorate are more than poignant. They make the reader feel like you are seeing the world through her eyes. Not always the easiest to read but in the end, it was actually a profound take on getting old, living a good life and appreciating what that means.

Highly recommend! Hard sometimes to improve on an original novel but this sequel did everything it should and more in showing us the next decades of the uniquely cranky-yet-wise Olive. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Absolutely loved this book quite literally from the first page. I was initially concerned that having not read the original book, I would be confused and a bit lost- rather like starting Harry Potter with Book 2 and not seeing the character development from the initial book. Gladly that was not he case. Every character seemed true to life, relatable and a pleasure to meet and share time and thoughts with. Universal problems like loneliness, aging, love, old lovers, the very changes in our bodies as we age, gain weight, have babies, deal with daughters in law, grandchildren, difficult adult children, all are dealt with in a loving, sensitive style. Everything is dealt with with honesty and with compassion. You basically like these folks faults and foibles included. They are each of us, good and bad with flaws and warts and even humor at times. Their problems are the very same everyday situations we all deal with day in and day out. Basically aging and change seem to be at play throughout the various story lines. Olive and Jack are exploring their evolving relationship even as Olive’s son comes to visit with his wife and 4 children. For Olive, disclosing these changes is difficult - even the little ones like a different car let alone the big ones. They are equally difficult for others to accept. Olive also has a lot of self doubts and insecurities about herself, her relationship with her dead husband Henry and her upbringing of her son, Christopher. But there are lots of stories and lots of characters but the thread is a small town in Maine where everyone knows each other seemingly forever. Jack has his own past life with it’s own set of mistakes, failures and wishes that he’d made different choices at times. Both Olive and Jack are old and getting older as the story unfolds with all life’s emotional and physical changes and both have regrets, fears and longings for how their lives might have been if... but they truly love one another despite their differences and are fearful of just how much time they may have together. They change each other; they grow; they morph. They confront the same problems of aging we will all face at life’s end.

From the first page when a main character, Jack, a recent widower, is driving an hour away to buy whiskey to avoid Olive, the description is so perfect, “strapping the seatbelt over his large stomach.....” is such a great example of an immediate ability to see this character in a way many of us can immediately relate to and understand. We all know this guy.... He drinks a bit too much at times, is set in his ways, is contrary and obstinate just because, and fears the many changes life sometimes has in store for us. This man is just like all of us with his faults, his regrets, his affairs, his inability to accept a gay daughter, but he is getting old, is lonely and afraid and deeply full of regret for a life not fully lived. Olive is equally flawed and equally fearful.

As the story unfolds, every scene just feels honest, sincere and is a joy to read and get to know these characters. This is a beautifully done book that is quite easy to highly recommend! I found I hated saying goodbye to these characters. I wanted to continue being a part of their world.

While I always love reading Jodi Picoult, her characters rarely leave me with wanting to keep up with them or to remain alive in my thoughts and feelings. Many are indeed memorable but I rarely want to know what happens to them next. When the story ends, so do they. Stout’s writing kind of reminds me of some of John Updike’s wonderful books. You keep wanting to follow up on these people down the road. How did they handle things, could they grow and change, were they finally happy..... that is exactly what this wonderful book does. It rather brings the various lives up to date - rather like catching up with old friends.

Very much enjoyed Olive, Again! I I liked and appreciated Olive’s commentary and personality much more than I did in the original Olive Kitteridge! She has seemingly mellowed with age. Even though I have read books like Olive, Again that are more like a collection of short stories, this book seemed more cohesive that previous similar reads, and I enjoyed meeting the various townsfolk and reading about Olive’s interactions with them. My favorite chapter was “Light” during which Olive visits and helps to support Cindy Coombs, who is ill with cancer.

Thank you to Net Galley and the author for letting me read an advance copy of this book! I liked it a lot!!

I have to admit, I didn't much like OLIVE KITTERAGE, but I thoroughly enjoyed OLIVE AGAIN. In this book, As Olive is nearing the end of her life, we meet people who live in her town, learn about their problems and Olive's impact on their lives. Olive remarries and comes to terms with her approaching death. I got a kick out of Olive's friendship with Isabelle of Strout's novel AMY AND ISABELLE.

Elizabeth Strout is a beautiful writer and Olive, Again is as amazing as Olive Kitteridge was. I loved this book. Olive is older, but still the same blunt, straight-forward Mainer. She's a curmudgeon with a heart of gold. The reader can't help but fall in love with Olive. Told in a series of independent stories with interconnecting characters, we see Olive interacting with her friends and family. Ms. Strout does not soft soap the issues around aging and Olive, Again will certainly make you feel a lot of empathy for seniors in our society. From losing friends and family to the indignity of adult communities and diapers, Olive ages not so gracefully...it's not all sad, there are some laugh out loud funny scenes. If you enjoyed Olive Kitteridge, you'll love Olive, Again. Now I can't wait for Ms. Strout's next book.

I thought I read Olive Kitteridge and didn't care for it. Turns out it was I Am Lucy Barton I read by Elizabeth Strout.

This book was a slog. It's really a bunch of short-ish stories, I guess? Some of these people never pop up again and man, do they have weird lives behind closed doors. The girl cleaning houses? The woman with the brother who committed murder and the mother in the rest home?

Sort of keeping these stories together is the cantankerous Olive Kitteridge. It seems she is more mellow and open in this stage of her life. I actually enjoyed Olive. It was all the other people that I could do without.

*I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher and I am required to disclose that in my review in compliance with federal law.*

For lovers of the first set of Olive stories, this one really fleshes it out. Like Olive’s second husband, Jack, we just love the woman, and we don’t really understand why. The depiction of lonely old age and the life review is especially searing.

Welcome back, Olive Kitteridge! Stepping back into Crosby, Maine is like revisiting old friends. The book spans several years and introduces new characters as well as reuniting us with ones from the first book. Olive is the common link between them. All in all, a very satisfying sequel.

Olive Again, picks up where Olive Kitteridge left off. If you loved the first, you won't be disappointed. If you haven't read the first, what are you waiting for?! The structure is very much the same, the content similar, the writing just as good. Elizabeth Strout presents her flawed characters honestly, but with compassion. She writes about aging, loneliness and life's simple pleasures as well as a few more shocking realities and a bit of subtle political commentary. Thank you Netgalley for providing an ARC for my honest review. I'm the envy of many in my circle.

"Olive, Again" is every bit as good as "Olive", if not better. I love how it is written much like a collection of short stories, whose characters intersect to tell one larger story about a place called Crosby, and a now elderly lady named Olive. She can be a cranky old lady by times, but to me she is just full of spunk and an odd sort of zest for life. The stories are just so real, no rose tinted glasses here, because real life doesn't work that way. She tackles all of the modern day issues with characters that are all to easy to relate to. By the time you're done reading you'll feel like you've visited the town of Crosby, and know these characters as though they are your neighbours. A truly excellent novel that will have you laughing and crying with your friends from Crosby, Maine. Highly recommended!

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book.
Olive Kitteridge is one of my very favorite novels. In the first book, readers get to know Olive through a collection of thirteen stories. I was so excited to see that Strout chose to write about this character again. While Olive isn't immediately likable but you come to 'feel' for her by the time the book has ended. This second book definitely lived up to my expectations and enjoyment I experienced in the first. I loved it!

I have to say this book exceeded all expectations I had after reading the first book about Olive. It is a delightful and sometimes hilarious read. Olive is someone I would have loved to meet. She is insightful, intuitive, and outspoken. He life in this book has come a long way from the Olive in the first book. She analyzes everything in detail, down to her thoughts on life in general. All of the chapters, while different characters, mesh together in the end. Her realizations about her life and how she has treated others is spot on. At times while reading this, I would laugh out loud until I cried. Loved this book and didn’t want it to end.