Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Before I get going, I need to say that I finished this book almost against my will. It was like a documentary on an important, but enormously depressing subject - the kind where you should as a person know about the topic, but really don't want to. So why finish the book, especially considering that life is to short to read books we don't want to? Because the writing is so good. Strout is a fantastic writer capturing well human frailty and disappointed expectations, but in her writing, there is almost no hope. She has a gift for capturing the bleak and the raw realities of life, but she leaves out what makes life worth living.

I think I would classify this book as a book that felt like it was assigned in school. After all, Strout won the Pulitzer for this short story collection. I can see its merit, its strengths, and why people talk about it - hence the high rating. But I would not recommend it to most people. There's too much beauty and hope in life and literature to stay bogged down in cruel realities. I don't mean that literature shouldn't take on hard topics, but opposition demands that the light be included alongside the darkness. As a person who strives to seek out the light, I need stories and writers that do the same.

So as always, happy reading, but maybe not this one? Your call, of course.