Olive Kitteridge

Title: Olive Kitteridge

Author: Elizabeth Strout

Genre: Short Stories

Time: 6.8 hours

2015 Book Challenge: a Pulitzer prize-winning book

I dreaded this particular challenge because, I thought a Pulitzer prize-winning book is gonna be a long, heavy read.  I assumed it’s gonna be about political unrest or something deep and significant culturally/historically.

 

So when I searched the list for Pulitzer prize-winning books, this one didn’t sound so bad.  I’ve read books like these before (although for the life of me, I cannot remember their titles right now, I’ll update this when I remember it). 

 

This is the type of book that has no major climatic event in the end that resolves whatever problems or struggles the main character has.  It sorta just follows Olive’s “journey.”  It has a “coming-of-age” feel to it.  Although, the whole book is not only about her, with more than half of it talking about the other people in the small town she lives in.  Mostly about their secrets and feelings which are kinda depressing.  You get the sense that these people are very lonely (or sad)—lonely because they are alone and lonely amongst people because they feel isolated from their grief/secrets/fears/etc.

 

It’s kind of a heavy read.  Heavy, in a sense, that it’s not all sunshine and roses (which is what life is all about).  It’s a good book to read if you’re in a mood for something like this. 

Update: as I was searching for what genre this book was, I found out this was a book of short stories.  Now it makes sense.