Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

This was another one that I read for my book club. Since I can't attend the meetings, I sent them an email with my thoughts. This is a copy of my email with my thoughts on the book.
"I finished Olive Kitteridge this week. Overall, I thought it was okay. It was so unbelievably sad, and I don't think that I was in the mood for that. Otherwise, however, I thought that it was pretty good.

Strout's writing was unique, and I had different feelings about it throughout the book. I felt that she was writing as though we were observers in the town and we should know what had happened to these people. Sometimes I felt drawn in by this approach, and sometimes I felt alienated by it. Her writing, however, was beautiful and simplistic. I love how she wrote this as a series of short stories rather than a novel. I felt that the picture of the town was more complete and I stayed more interested in the story. The way that Olive touched every story (except for "Criminal" - I didn't really understand that, unless Olive was the woman on the phone with Rebecca) was so unique and interesting. I don't think that I would have been all that interested in Olive's life for an entire novel.

The tone of the book was so cyncial and sad, and that was the one major problem that I had with the book. I don't find life to be that sad, and in a lot of ways, I felt that this book was just a picture of life. It could have been so touching and so moving if it just hadn't been so cyncial. Nothing good happened to these people and the whole thing was just so sad.

I guess I'd have to wrap up my feelings about this book as ambivalent. While I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either."

3/5 stars