Olive, Again

Reviews / Votes

A novel to treasure... Olive, Again, like Strout's first book, delivers roughly five hours of spine-tingling pleasure. * Sunday Times * Olive, Again is a tour de force. With extraordinary economy of prose - few writers can pack so much emotion, so much emotion, so much detail into a single paragraph - Strout immerses us in the lives of her characters, each so authentically drawn as to be deserving of an entire novel themselves. Compassionate, masterly and profound, this is a writer at the height of her powers * Observer * Emotionally honest, psychologically piercing and ultimately life-affirming * The i * Her writing is exquisite; her vision is boundless. What a sublime book. A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own. In Olive, Again, she teaches us that there is always more to know about human beings, even the ones we are closest to. There's no simple truth about human existence, Strout reminds us, only wonderful, painful complexity. 'Well, that's life,' Olive says. 'Nothing you can do about it.' Beautifully written and alive with compassion, at times almost unbearably poignant. A thrilling book in every way. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) * Strout again demonstrates her gift for zeroing in on ordinary moments in the lives of ordinary people to highlight their extraordinary resilience * Publishers Weekly, starred review * She gets better with each book Glorious * The Times * A perfect novel * Financial Times *