Review: Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This is not my kind of book. It was depressing and bleak and tried to make me sympathize with a character who actually turned out to be worse than initially depicted. The one character I liked died off-screen most of the way through the book, and I wound up feeling cheated more than anything else.

The book vaguely follows the later life of Olive Kitteridge, a crotchety woman who lives in Crosby, Maine. It consists of a series of random vignettes told through several perspectives. Some people have called this a strength of the book, but I just got confused from having too many people to keep track of. The book never really says how they tie in or who they are, so I spent these sections waiting for relevance that never came.

I'm sure there are readers who like gritty realism and to be smacked in the face with how bleak reality can be, but I like escapism in my fiction. Therefore, this book was not for me.



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