Reading Elizabeth Strout's writing feels like coming home. From the first sentence, I urge myself to pace my reading: taking small lingering bites and chewing slowly. If, at the end of a page, I feel that my mind may have wandered, I go back and ensure I've engaged with every word, sentiment and shrewd snapshot of humanity. Returning to Olive Kitteridge is everything I hoped it would be. Still the gnarly, cantankerous, astute, no-holds-barred, unfailingly honest, loveable and misunderstood individual, she is just "so Olive"! Here, we observe the years advance in Crosby and Shirley Falls as Olive and her community age and morph. Never is a character named and then forgotten: Strout brings to bear the full gamut of tragedy that privately inflicts families and individuals who, when only presented with the surface, we may view unkindly and-too often- unfairly. And, though this sadness can weigh so heavily, she also has us laugh out-loud at the charm and plausibility of humorous moments created when people just try to rub along together; "Well, that's great," Jack said, and he meant it, although he didn't care a whole lot. But she was making it interesting, as interesting as it could be to Jack, because she was Olive, and he knew they would start talking about something else soon; he was waiting.' But it's not ONLY that! Among other things, it's Strout's careful crafting of such simple beauty in her observations of the mundane: "it was almost all over, after all, her life. It swelled behind her like a sardine fishing net, all sorts of useless seaweed and broken bits of shells and the tiny shining fish". So, YES, read this book and, if you are lucky enough to have other books from Elizabeth Strout's back-catalogue that you have not yet read, then read those too. And then, when you (like me) have run out, read them all again. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for sharing an advance copy of this masterpiece, in return for my honest opinion. You've actually made my summer.

Oh Godfrey this was a good book! The minutiae of life is lovingly described by Ms Strout in her vignettes of life in Crosby, Maine and Olive Kitteridge's thoughts on them. In a very gentle way the author helps us age with Olive and understand how life changes and the fear that can come with it, but also the mellowing of opinion and the need for acceptance and friendship.

I was late to the Elizabeth Strout literature party but you're often late to some of the best things in life. For reasons only known to myself I avoided reading 'Olive Kitteridge' but once I started I flew through it and it was pure pleasure from beginning to end. Strout has created the perfect anti-heroine with Olive and you'd be hard hearted not to love this central character by the end of that first book. Strout DOES NOT disappoint with this sequel. It’s the same format and you will recognise some of the peripheral characters but this second tome is profound and moving on a level that the first book decided not to go to. There's still the bittersweet humour that shined throughout in the first book but the bigger questions in life loom large here. Well-done Elizabeth. You're a genius!

This is a great follow-up to the first book but could, I think, be read alone. Like the earlier volume, and many of Strout's novels, it is structured as a series of short stories, arranged chronologically and involving the same cast of characters in the same world: the East cost of the US near the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. The character of Olive, whether she's the centre of the chapter in question or a character passing through someone else's chapter, is here expanded and deepened--she really 'grows' and develops as she continues to live. What I like about this book is the focus on older people who are not 'fixed' as if they get to a certain place in their life and are then left with no developmental space, but are continuing to live and change and react to their relationships with people around them. Beautifully written and full of much food for thought, as well as being deeply moving and often wryly funny. I recommend this book most highly.

For a number of years the Pulitzer Prize winning Olive Kitteridge had been on my mental list of “must read” novels for a number of years but it was only when a friend bought me a copy of Olive, Again that, thinking I really ought to read them in sequence, I finally got around to reading it. In one way I regret that I’d deprived myself of such a “gem” but the huge advantage of the wait has been that I wasn’t faced with having a long wait for this sequel! Olive, Again picks up the thread of Olive’s life not long after the first story ended and, as in the first novel, comprises a series of linked vignettes featuring residents of the small town of Crosby, Maine. A number of the characters are familiar from the previous book but the reader’s insights into their lives and experiences is deepened by the author’s acute observations of how people behave in a whole range of scenarios, how previous firmly-held views and beliefs can change when individuals face new challenges and how this then affects those around them see them. There wasn’t one character in the book which wasn’t finely drawn and entirely credible and the author captured so evocatively the fact that, behind closed doors, there are often individuals living lives of quiet desperation. Although the titular character of Olive sometimes appears only on the periphery of some of these stories, her presence is, to a greater or lesser degree, central to each of them, with each of the stories adding to the reader’s understanding of this flawed, complex character. Olive herself is self-aware and honest enough to recognise that there are many ways in which she too has changed over the years, although often seeming surprised that this has happened! There are many ways in which she has mellowed but, essentially, she has never lost that acuity which has always defined her interactions with others, and neither has she lost her ability to show remarkable compassion towards people who are, in one way or another, suffering. In my review of the first book I reflected on my huge admiration for the author’s ability to “transform a collection of vignettes into such a satisfying whole, managing to combine moments of profound sadness, loneliness, regret, cruelty, anger, and loss with so many moments of caring tenderness, deep empathy, long-lasting love, loyalty, reconciliation and, ultimately, a message that no matter how messy and confusing it is, life is worth living to the full, no matter what your age.” Those observations feel equally valid for this sequel, which has at its heart so much about the realities of ageing, with some keenly observed, sympathetic reflections on its associated challenges, a subject which is seldom treated so honestly (if at all!) in fiction writing. Olive may not like what is happening to her body but, as always, she’s prepared to face the challenges head-on, no “going quietly” for her! I’ve grown to love Olive Kitteridge! She’s such an endearing character (not that she would necessarily recognise or approve of that description!) and I’m already feeling bereft of her company; even in those moments when I felt frustrated by her sometimes self-destructive behaviour, I always felt able to believe in her innate goodness … and I thoroughly enjoyed her waspish sense of humour. So, I find myself hoping (although probably in vain!) that this isn’t the last we’ll hear of this wonderful character, as well as the residents of Crosby, Maine!