olive kitteridge

Our Town, Crosby, Maine

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

September 23, 2021 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Cbr13bingo Shelfie BINGO BLACKOUT Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge reads more like a short story collection than a novel. Set in the seaside town of Crosby, Maine, this book takes the reader into the lives and histories of its inhabitants with Olive at the center of many stories and on the periphery of others. Olive is a complicated woman, prone to moodiness and judgment but also capable of deep and unexpected compassion for her neighbors. Through the relationships of Crosby’s residents, Elizabeth Strout examines […]

A poignant, salty heroine

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

June 7, 2021 by Wanderlustful Leave a Comment

Set in the small town of Crosby, Maine, Olive Kitteridge is a collection of short stories that occasionally feature and always reference, at least in some small way, the titular main character. Olive is practical, blunt and opinionated but not introspective regarding her own feelings. She often flouts social niceties and seems incapable of apologizing . Despite this, she is not unlikeable- she is very human, and Strout gives the reader enough backstory and detail on Olive so that we can see her emotions even […]

She didn’t like to be alone. Even more, she didn’t like being with people.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

February 9, 2019 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a book that takes place in a small Maine town. The central locus of this book is Olive Kitteridge, a retired middle school math teacher with a pharmacist for a husband and a podiatrist for a son. She’s not the center of every single story in the collection, but she is the glue and often the catalyst for them separately and/or together. This is labeled as a “novel in stories” and there’s a lot of different of these floating around. Ultimately I think […]

Portrait of an Ordinary Woman

June 30, 2014 by Fiat.Luxury Leave a Comment

Olive Kitteridge is a book about folks in Crosby, Maine, basically a collection of short stories that amount to a (light) novel. Each story is about someone in Crosby, Maine–sometimes Olive is the main character, and sometimes she makes an appearance as a supporting character or even in someone’s memory. Olive is a sourpuss middle-aged lady, big-boned and no-nonsense. She’s described by different characters as scary, large, imposing, and she knows these things about herself with a kind of partial self-awareness that felt extremely familiar. […]

jeverett15
on Diary of a Mad Tradwife
As written, the book would be very tricky to adapt. I imagine they'd have to really rework the story. I...
wicherwill
on Comforting message but … (it’s definitely me, not you, novellas)
I haven't re-read this since originally reading them but I remember being in a state of change (temporarily living in...
wicherwill
on Can’t wait to see how this connects to The Mercy of the Gods
ughhh yes I can't remember enough of The Mercy of the Gods to confidentially read the next one but also...
wicherwill
on Diary of a Mad Tradwife
My book club is waiting for the Libby rush to die down to read this together--I keep dabbling at reviews...
wicherwill
on “Now, in a growing number of cities across the country, when a victim testified, she no longer did so alone.”
Oof this feels like another one that I'd love to read during the summer when the sun can counteract the...

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