Book Review: Olive Kitteridge

I found Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout at Myopic Books which I find humorous considering I could not find it anywhere this time last year. Sometimes I wonder how some books make their way into used book stores. Maybe this story packed too much reality in.

I did not really research what this book was about other than that it won the Pulitzer last year. I am sort of glad that I didn't. It was nice to not have preconceived ideas of where the story would go. I would hate to ruin it for anyone else that decides to read it, but it is a story about love. About relationships and how they grow and change. It is about how they are not perfect but we all ultimately need to love and be loved. 

It really made me reflect on my relationship and the relationship of my grandparents. To imagine spending 50 years with the same person. More time together than apart. I am sure if I asked my grandmother, she would say it wasn't easy, as everyone does. But somehow they managed. I have been with Aaron for going on five years. It may only be a drop in the bucket, but in five years you can learn a lot about loving someone. 

Needless to say, I thought this was a beautiful book. I thought it really captured the way a relationship works, what it feels like to love someone for a long time, and to lose someone. The characters are very well developed. The style of the book, told in short vignettes, at times unnecessarily tied back to the central character (whose relevance in some instances with quite thin), but overall gave a well round idea of the central theme. 

The character of Olive Kitteridge was quite revealing. She spoke to that judging part of everyone. The idiosyncrasies that we all have, that our partners still love us for without question. 

"His blue eyes were watching her now; she saw in them the vulnerability, the invitation, the fear, as she sat down quietly, placed her open hand on his chest, felt the thump, thump of his heart, which would someday stop, as all hearts do. But there was no someday now, there was only the silence of this sunny room."

Highly recommended.

Other reviews of this book: New York Times, Pulitzer, NPR: You Must Read This