Kim Williams's Reviews > Oh William!

Elizabeth Strout is a favorite author. As a writer, she is kind to human beings, which, in real life, you don't see all that often, at least not deep, down and sincerely. People are kind on the surface, often making harsh judgements underneath. Her characters are flawed and real, yet I don't feel like they are being judged. Her novels deal with familiar situations and feelings that people everywhere deal with, which make them very compelling.

That said, I didn't enjoy this 3rd book of her Amgash trilogy as much as the other two, and Olive Kitteridge. This is probably very unkind of me, but it almost came down to a matter of style. I love Strout's simple, unpretentious style. But in this particular volume, I noticed something, and it began to drive me nuts after reading it so often. The narrator Lucy recounts an incident describing how she felt at the time. Then she follows that with the one paragraph sentence: "This is what I thought." Or this: "I wondered who . . ." "I have wondered this before. Many times I have wondered this." (In that order, one after another.)

I wish I could count how many times that occurred in this book. It began to feel like a pretension itself, after awhile. Maybe its just me, I haven't seen anyone else comment on it, but I wish her editors had caught that.

I will continue to read and enjoy Elizabeth Strout's writing. I have "Olive, Again" in my TBR stack, and I look forward to anything new she puts out.