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Olive Kitteridge Nov 21, 2009
An interesting collection of characters, but all sad. The writing and character development make this a good, but depressing, read.
 olive kittridge Nov 19, 2009
This Book kept me interested and it had very good insights into small town Main life but I swear I was beginning to think Olive was bipolar or something. And I also did not like the political smart ass comments.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Surprisingly bitter main character Nov 17, 2009
I picked up this book in part because it won a Pulitzer, but I was disappointed. The main character, Olive Kitteridge, is a tense, often-angry woman with no ability to self-censor her thoughts. While main characters need not be perfect, I never really got to like her, though she grows more sympathetic as she grows older. She lacks humor, making it even more puzzling that Strout would choose someone so basically unlikeable as the focus of these stories. Also, while all the stories supposedly have Olive as some sort of focal point, or give her relevance, two only mention her by name, and those stories seem not connected at all to the town of Crosby, Maine, where most of the action takes place. Finally, Olive's slams at former president GW Bush as a "moron" and as someone who looks "retarded" did nothing to further endear her to me, though it probably did some members of the Pulitzer committee. Her bona fides as someone sassy and opinionated were already well-documented; sticking in her political opinions seemed tacked on and irrelevant. What was the point? Three stars for Strout's excellent writing, though.
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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Olive; An Everywoman. Nov 16, 2009
I just loved this book. I can see why it won the Pulitzer. Strout so beautifully shows the many conditions of the human heart, including its pain and its joy.
A collection of short stories, Olive Kitteridge is a large woman in more than one way--thought, word and physical being in her small Maine town of Crosby. While Olive usually makes at least a brief appearance in every story, many of the stories are about her specifically and her life.
Some of the stories are sad, some funny, some heartbreaking all truthful. They are about life, death, aging and disappointment. Like Shakespeare, Elizabeth Strout seems to be able to encompass it all in this beautifully written, slim book. Excellent reading, and hard to put down. I loved it.
Deserved the Pulitzer Nov 13, 2009
This book got Elizabeth Strout the Pulitzer, and I can see why.
A wonderful tapestry of tales told from multiple perspectives, and a distrurbing and honest view of many of the foibles that make people so unpredictable and complex. Read it, you won't be sorry. Like all really great books, it engenders some complex and ambivalent reactions. I found it a bit thick in terms of mental illness, as one example. Overall, though, I found it uplifting, since these are real characters, dealing with real issues; morality, murder, jealousy, insecurity, but ultimately overcoming insecurity, fear and hatred through love.
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