At a glance
Pages289
First published2019
SettingCoastal Maine town of Crosby
AudienceAdult
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for: Readers who loved Olive Kitteridge and want to follow its prickly, deeply human protagonist into late life through Strout's precise, plainspoken prose and mosaic storytelling.
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Olive, Again returns to the coastal Maine town of Crosby through 13 interrelated stories that trace Olive Kitteridge into her eighties, exploring aging, grief, loneliness, regret, and flickering hope with Strout's characteristic plainspoken precision. Critics called it "arguably better than the original", praising its capacity to render complex human rawness in the simplest language — an Oprah's Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller that cemented Strout's reputation as one of the finest writers of her generation. Readers who prefer sustained narrative momentum over an episodic, mosaic structure, or who find a consistently sober emotional register taxing, may want to approach with adjusted expectations.
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers drawn to precise, plainspoken literary prose and character studies that locate grief and grace in the unremarkable moments of ordinary lives, Olive, Again is fully worth it — critics at The Washington Post, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly all responded with enthusiasm, and Zadie Smith captured the novel's particular alchemy by noting that Strout 'managed to make me love this strange woman I'd never met.' Joan Frank at The Washington Post called it 'arguably better than the original,' writing that its sentences, in 'simplest words and clearest order,' nevertheless 'hammer home some of the most complex human rawness you'll ever read.' The main caveat is structural and tonal: the episodic, mosaic format offers limited narrative momentum, and the book's sustained focus on aging, regret, and mortality makes for a consistently sober emotional register — readers who come expecting plot-driven propulsion or emotional uplift may find the experience requires adjustment.
- Similar books
- Readers who respond to Olive, Again's mosaic structure and its quiet excavation of ordinary lives will find much to admire in the curated selections below. Olive Kitteridge — Strout's Pulitzer Prize–winning original — is the essential companion read, establishing the Crosby world and Olive's history. Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day shares Olive, Again's preoccupation with regret, late-life reckoning, and the emotional costs of repression, rendered in equally precise, restrained prose. Olga Tokarczuk's Flights and Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin both employ fragmented, non-linear structures that reward readers comfortable with mosaic storytelling over conventional plot arcs. Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, another Pulitzer Prize winner, speaks to Strout's gift for rooting complex human experience in specific, vividly rendered communities.
- Who should read this?
- Olive, Again is best suited to readers of literary fiction who prize precise, plainspoken prose and character studies that find grief and grace in the unremarkable moments of ordinary lives. Fans of the original Olive Kitteridge will find the sequel's continued portrait of Olive both earned and illuminating, while readers of Kazuo Ishiguro or other writers who work in quiet, accumulative emotional registers will feel at home. Those coming to the book for the first time should know that it is a novel-in-stories — 13 episodically structured tales rather than a continuous narrative — and that its sustained focus on aging, loneliness, regret, and mortality makes for a consistently sober reading experience.
- About Elizabeth Strout
- Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author.
- Tell me about the adaptation
- While Olive, Again itself has not been adapted as of this writing, its predecessor Olive Kitteridge was adapted into a critically acclaimed HBO limited series that won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series, with Frances McDormand starring as Olive in a performance that became a defining portrayal of the character. The cultural footprint of that adaptation — a substantial one — is part of what made returning to Olive in a sequel a genuine risk for Strout, and part of what made the sequel's warm critical reception so notable.
- Is it a good book club pick?
- Olive, Again is an excellent book club selection. Its 13 interrelated stories generate individual discussion anchors — from Jack Kennison's reckoning with his estranged gay daughter and the death of his wife, to a nurse's disclosure of a long-held secret, to the story 'Helped,' which features a moving exchange about faith and loss — while the overarching themes of aging, family estrangement, regret, and resilience provide rich common ground across the group. Its selection for Oprah's Book Club in November 2019 and its widespread critical acclaim from outlets including The Washington Post, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly make it a well-supported, substantive choice.
- Where should I start with Elizabeth Strout?
- For readers new to Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge is the essential starting point: it won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, introduced Olive and the coastal Maine town of Crosby, and was later adapted into an Emmy Award–winning HBO limited series starring Frances McDormand. Olive, Again is formally the second in a two-book series and rewards familiarity with Olive's history and the Crosby world — reading the original first makes the sequel's deepening of those relationships considerably more resonant. LuvemBooks has also reviewed Tell Me Everything: Oprah's Book Club: A Novel and The Things We Never Say: A Novel for readers who want to explore further.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
About Elizabeth Strout
Tell me about the adaptation
Is it a good book club pick?
Where should I start with Elizabeth Strout?
Summarize this book
Olive, Again is a novel-in-stories — 13 interrelated but narratively discontinuous tales set in and around Crosby, Maine — in which Elizabeth Strout returns to her most iconic creation, the prickly, wry, and deeply empathetic Olive Kitteridge, now aging into her mid-eighties. The stories move outward from Olive to a wide cast of characters she touches or collides with: Jack Kennison, the retired Harvard academic she befriends and plans to marry; her son Christopher, a podiatrist in New York whose strained relationship with his mother resurfaces; a teenager grappling with the loss of her father; a nurse who discloses a long-held secret; and a lawyer facing an unwanted inheritance, among others. Unified not by continuous plot but by shared emotional terrain — grief, loneliness, familial torment, and the challenge, as Strout puts it within the text, 'to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can' — the novel builds a portrait of late life that refuses sentimentality while remaining alert to tenderness.
Follow up
How are the stories connected?
How does Olive's story end?
Does it follow on directly from the first book?
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Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
Reading level
Adult
Content to know about
grief and bereavement
aging and mortality
family estrangement
Skip if You're looking for plot-driven fiction or an emotionally uplifting read — Olive, Again's mosaic structure and sustained focus on regret, loneliness, and mortality offer accumulative quiet weight rather than narrative momentum or tonal relief.
Editorial Review
Olive, Again is a New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club pick in which Elizabeth Strout returns to the coastal Maine town of Crosby and its unforgettable protagonist, Olive Kitteridge, through 13 interrelated short stories that chart aging, grief, loneliness, regret, and flickering hope. A sequel to Strout's Pulitzer Prize–winning Olive Kitteridge, it was named a best book of the year by Time, Vogue, critical coverage, and critical coverage, and earned praise from critical coverage as "beautifully written and alive with compassion, at times almost unbearably poignant."
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