Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.
So glad to have Olive back. I loved this book possibly more than "Olive Kitteridge". A series of short stories through which Olive weaves that manage to become a coherent whole. It forms a look at life with all of its frailties. Olive speaks her mind which I love and manages in her old age to find love and understanding. Read the book but read Olive Kitteridge first.

Olive is crotchety & unapologetically blunt & I just ❤️ her. .
🍁 Not all short story collections are equal. Elizabeth Strout has delivered another gem. Each of the stories has its own special Olive-ness and begs you to pause and consider, “how does one live an honest life?” .
🍁Olive, Again has all the feels as themes of love, aging, motherhood, loneliness, family and fear are explored. You wouldn’t expect it from my previous character analysis but Olive is actually quite empathetic. Some of these chapters could flourish into standalone novels. .
🍁Really, this book is about how your life impacts others. Acknowledge the small moments, engage with people, and be kind. @oprahsbookclub you picked a spectacular story! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I absolutely loved this book! I found this book to be better than the first one. I loved the writing and the characters. I would recommend this book.

I don't normally reach for books of short stories, but Elizabeth Strout's, Olive, Again, works. Ms. Strout is an incredibly talented writer and I would recommend her works to anyone.

Olive, Again is Elizabeth Strout's follow-up to the successful Olive Kitteridge and follows the similar format of threaded short stories.

Strout conveys such engaging (and at times repulsive) portrayals of her characters, revealing to us flawed and broken individuals that felt real enough to me that I couldn't help but have visceral reactions to them and their choices. From Suzanne, caught between her past and her future, struggling with the realities of who her parents truly were, to Olive, as she wanted to welcome her son and his family into her home but bungled the experience, I still found ways to have compassion for them and be invested in their lives.

The stories focus on Olive's later years, including family dynamics, marriages, and friendships, and they also address what it is to live a life well, wrestling with how others perceive us and ways we've failed others, and coming to terms with loneliness and what it is to love.

(I received a digital ARC from Random House Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.)

The sequel to the incredible runaway bestseller "Olive Kitterage", our heroine is back and better than ever!

We return to our beloved Olive; genuine, empathetic, and brutally honest as she lives her authentic life in small town Maine.

Now in her 70's, Olive looks back on her life as only Olive can.
Hilarious, heartwarming and oh so blunt, Olive is a true tour de force as we encounter a baby that wants to be born now, her daughter in law needs advice and the loss of her husband is still raw.

4⭐
Thank you NetGalley, Random House and the author Ms. Elizabeth Stout for the opportunity to read this Advanced Readers Copy.

I'll preface my thoughts on this book by saying that, apparently, it is a follow-up to Strout's earlier book, Olive Kitteridge, which I did not read. I get the feeling that I should have read it to have developed a connection with Olive because this book alone did not a connection make. She was an interesting character, but not one that I particularly cared about or needed to know after about three hundred pages or so. It was a fine read, but I would recommend checking out Strout's backlist if you really enjoy building that deep connection with your characters. *Advance copy provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Olive, Again picks up roughly where Olive Kitteridge left off, and continues a meandering, everyday path as Olive grows older. The chapters struck me as mini short stories, loosely connected. We see Olive in all her cranky and human glory. Olive becomes even more brutally honest, more herself, as she ages. She finds she can let go and love a little, which is refreshing. We could do worse than to end up like Olive. Four stars instead of five, as I felt there was not much of a plot, and I was left wanting more Olive.

I received this e-copy from Random House via NetGalley and this is an impartial review.

I had heard so many good things about this book. I read it without having ever read the first book. Maybe that would have given some context to this mashup of stories about a small town in Maine that only seemed loosely related to the title character. Some of the characters were interesting and some were not. I really enjoyed some chapters but found others long and tedious. It was like reading a book of short stories set in the same town.

Maybe in the future I will read the first book and feel more connected to this one.

This is one of those rare books in which it feels like what's not said is every bit as important as what is said. We're reunited with grumpy Olive as she deals with the disappointments and embarrassments of becoming elderly.

Olive Kitteridge once again captures the hearts of readers with her unconventional life and down-to-earth, witty dialogue. This book is as amazing as the first one!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my review.

Olive Kitteridge is one complicated woman, as we first learned in the book named after her. She is opinionated, sometimes harsh, but she can also be surprisingly kind and empathetic.

As this book begins, her first husband has died and she has "sort of" started a relationship with a new man - Jack Kennison, who we briefly met in the original book. Unable to make peace with her son and his choices in life, Olive realizes she is lonely and marries Jack, much to the surprise and disapproval of that son. In their eight year marriage, he opens her eyes to another world and when he dies she is alone once more and realizes she needs to be around other people to survive.

We are once again introduced to other inhabitants of Crosby, Maine, and in the end most of them interact with Olive. Through these interactions we see a new and different Olive, somewhat softer and more open to other people.

As Olive ages into her 70s and 80s, she and her son finally come to some sort of peace and she at last finds a sort of contentment.

This is a collection of short stories with a common thread, Olive Kitteridge. She tells it like it is, which is brutally honest. Given her age, most folks just either ignore it, or appreciate her honesty and find it refreshing (or maybe not exactly refreshing, but they laugh it off). She is dating, and eventually marries for companionship, and of course her son does not handle this well. But is he a regular in her life? No he is not, he keeps his distance, such that when they come to visit it is one of the most awkward encounters I have read in a while. I was literally cringing for everyone. I adored Olive and her quirks, could I live with them regularly? No. But did I understand her? Absolutely. She is unabashedly who she is, and those who don't like her can keep it moving. She is usually spot on in her assessments of people, and those that can appreciate her usually are the better for it. What you can take away from this delightful novel is that relationships at all ages are hard, especially as we get older. We need to be aware of this not only as we get older, but as we are around those that are older than us. What I also took away from Olive is that it's ok to speak our minds, because there are a lot of derps in this world that could use a lot more Olive in their life. I happen to be one of them.

Fans of Olive Kitteridge and Elizabeth Strout will not be disappointed. The wait has been worthwhile. That said, this sequel does not have the same sense of freshness and urgency as the first Olive book. Starting with an entire story about someone other than the protagonist likely has something to do with this. And Olive's presence/impact in subsequent stories being much less significant also does not help.

All that said, Strout's writing continues to be illuminating and technically skilled. We are in the assured hands of a master of her craft here.

Olive Kitteridge published in 2008, won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. My book club chose to read the book before it became a movie (which I still haven't seen and am not sure I would want to). Not everyone found Olive to be a sympathetic character. She is abrasive and sometimes thoughtless but not a bad person. She may remind you of yourself sometimes.

On November 7, 2019 I received the gift of life - a kidney transplant. Among the wonderful results of this surgery, I was able to start reading once more. I picked up Olive, Again and continued reading where I had left off. The short story "Light" was about Cindy Coombs and dealing with illness. It spoke directly to me.

FIRST LINE: "In the early afternoon on a Saturday in June, Jack Kennison put on his sunglasses, got into his sports car with the top down, strapped the seat belt over his shoulder and across his large stomach, and drove to Portland - almost an hour away - to buy a gallon of whiskey rather than bump into Olive Kitteridge at the grocery store here in Crosby, Maine."

THE STORY: "I do not have a clue who I have been. Truthfully, I do not understand a thing."

Revisiting Elizabeth Strout's iconic character, Olive Kitteridge once again becomes the glue holding together the thirteen interlocking stories about human loneliness. Olive is older now and has begun to experience the trials and tribulations of aging. Some stories hit pretty close to home.

WHAT I THOUGHT: One is always a bit apprehensive when approaching a new book by a loved author especially when it is a sequel, but I found and still find Olive to be a fascinating person.

Both the November (written by Joyce Carol Oates) and December (Oprah's Book Club) issues of Oprah Magazine, stories about Elizabeth Stout's new book Olive, Again. Publication was on October 15, 2019.

One other minor connection was the setting in Maine where we often vacationed when I was growing up. Although Cosby, Maine is fictional, Reid State Park is mentioned and I remember going there to picnic. The author knows how to convey the sense of place in which her characters live.

BOTTOM LINE: I'd read both books. The poignancy that evolves from aging will resonate with readers. The writing is beautiful. The ways Olive appears in the various stories is carefully crafted. Experience Olive for yourself.

Disclaimer: A copy of Olive, Again was provided to me by Random House/Net Galley for an honest review.
Hardcover: 293 pages
Publisher: Random House (October 15, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1984818236
ISBN-13: 978-1984818232

Elizabeth Strout is the author of the New York Times bestseller Olive Kitteridge, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; the national bestseller Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in London. She lives in Maine and New York City.

I hesitated to read this book because, though I remember loving Olive Kittteridge, I had absolutely no memory of what the book was about and I did not have time to reread it. I worried that I would be missing something if I didn’t remember the story. I am so glad that I was wrong, and that I finally picked up the book. I felt that Olive, Again was able to stand on its own beautifully and as I read, I remembered why I loved the first book so much. Now I want to reread it!

Olive is now elderly, and what an interesting, multifaceted and grouchy character she is. Godfrey, she made me laugh out loud, with her keen observations and biting judgments of those around her. Hers is a realistic struggle with loneliness and becoming invisible as she grows old. I was especially touched by her description of the terror she felt in Heart, as her body deteriorated and she became more fragile.

Strout is a master at crafting a story. Each chapter stands as a short story, yet all of the chapters are woven together with Olive and Crosby, Maine as common threads. The story unfolds slowly, yet there might be months between each chapter, and the surprising episodes that happen in the interim are casually revealed in the following chapter (I’m trying not to give away any spoilers!) The descriptions are beautiful, for example, “the sunlight was magnificent, it shone a glorious yellow from the pale blue sky, and through the bare branches of the trees, with the open-throated look that came toward the end of the day’s light.” I can feel the golden hour!

My thanks to NetGalley for an Advanced Readers Copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in any way.

Loved it! I have a special place in my heart for curmudgeonly old men and women and Olive Kitteridge is certainly still grumpy. I loved the character s in the town of Crosby Maine and how each one touched Olive's life. Thank you Ms Strout for letting us see the rest of Olive's life!

In the end, I liked this book. Probably because the last few chapters are about Olive herself. I think if the whole book had been from Olive's viewpoint, it may have been a 5 for me. I did not care for the chapters that were about other people where Olive makes a cameo appearance. Eventually you see can see some effect on Olive's story, but while reading them, they felt pointless and irrelevant, and kind of boring.

thoroughly enjoy this book. easy read. great story line. would recommend this to any book club to read together.

I wanted to like this book but the further I got into the more depressing and non-redemptive it felt. I like a book to be an escape even when dark and this just felt like a drowning.