Olive, Again

By: Elizabeth Strout

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's Summary

Brought to you by Penguin. 

An extraordinary new novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, number one New York Times best-selling author of Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton.

Olive, Again follows the blunt, contradictory yet deeply loveable Olive Kitteridge as she grows older, navigating the second half of her life as she comes to terms with the changes - sometimes welcome, sometimes not - in her own existence and in those around her. 

Olive adjusts to her new life with her second husband, challenges her estranged son and his family to accept him, experiences loss and loneliness, witnesses the triumphs and heartbreaks of her friends and neighbours in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine - and, finally, opens herself to new lessons about life. 

©2019 Elizabeth Strout (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic Reviews

"One of America's finest writers." (Sunday Times)

 "A powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships." (Observer)

"Strout really can write you into a world until you feel you are there with her, in that house, that life, that little Podunk of a place." (The Times)

Olive,

How wonderful to meet you again! So tender, wistful, hilarious, brash and whimsical. Thank you, Elizabeth Strout❤️

Olive Again

Kimberly Farr's mssterly narration brings to life Olive and the host of attendant characters in both unforgettable Olive novels.

A Masterpiece

Elizabeth Strout writes love letters to all of us with these two novels. Olive Kitteridge, and the people in Olive’s orbit, are mundane, flawed, and often frustrating. Yet in Strout’s eyes they are beautiful. We are beautiful.

Very good

It’ astonishing how Elizabeth Strout manages to convey the ambiance, the smells, the colors of day-to-day life. You can feel yourself there, in that town of Crosby, Maine.
I have been to Maine once and I just loved it.
My congratulations to the author and to the narrator. She’s excellent. A must-read, absolutely.

Indomitable Olive

Elizabeth Strout does it again
Strout is such an insightful and generous writer and in Olive she has created someone we can all relate to. Olive has insight enough but no real inclination to change her ways and it is, I think, this unwillingness or inability to people-please I admire most about her. There are many poignant moments in this book and I will never forget the visceral thwack I felt as I listened to the chapter entitled The Poet. The poem is brutal and honest but Olive really is indomitable and she always picks herself up, dusts herself off and starts all over again.
Walking with Olive, I feel less out of step with the world. Strout shows us human nature in all its complexity and shines a light on all of us.

Every-day lives made to matter

Eleven years ago Elizabeth Strout published "Olive Kitteridge" set in ordinaryville, Crosby, in Maine, which finished with strident, all-seeing Olive at 70.

"Olive Again" takes Olive further: widowed, into a second marriage with Jack (overweight and not the man he was since his prostate surgery); into old age with all its alone-ness, frustrations and indignities - and a second widowhood. That sounds beyond depressing, but these inter-linked, powerfully charged stories in which characters come and go tug at the heartstrings with such poignancy, such insights - and humour - that we're drawn right in.

These are ordinary characters living ordinary lives but Strout makes them matter, and makes us feel the magnitude of their apparently insignificant disappointments and sadnesses. A grandmother plagues her uninterested visitor with pictures of her grandchildren on her phone, rattling on at length about their cuteness. "Oh I talk too much about them," she gushes. "Yes, you do," replies the visitor and the grandmother's world collapses.

The tragic failures of relationships are explored with infinite subtlety - between Olive and her grown-up son and his hostile step children who stare sullenly; the silent, alienated old couple who have divided their living space with tape. "Tell your father to take you out because I'm not!" says the wife to the dog.

I loved this and the narrator Kimberly Farr's presentation of the dialogue and Olive's thoughts is masterly..

You will love Olive and get weepy at the end

The first Olive book depressed me. This one had hope and understanding and I loved it. The ending was truly moving and made me think about where I'm going in my life. The narration was very good and really captured the different characters. Wish there was another book to listen to.

Absolutely loved it

This book made me laugh and cry, Olive was such a snob and yet I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.
I loved the way the author involved her in other stories as we got to know other characters.
Most wonderful narration by Kimberly Farr...I could listen to any book narrated by her, she has a great voice and protrayed the story so well.

Would definitely recommend this book.

Could not stop listening ..

I read Olive Kitteridge a couple of years back. Getting older I switched to Audible. It’s wonderful so is the book I’ve just listened to read so very well throughout. Olive, Again … staying true to her somewhat on the spectrum … intensely herself but then again surprising herself right to the end. Such a great, insightful writer … adding momentum and telling the tale of old age … and confusion. The one thing I felt was that when Olive had her heart attack and was saved by the speedy arrival of paramedics … this would not happen today with our NHS .. Olive’s story would have ended there behind the wheel some chapters ago… but this is fiction. An excellent book which being in the latter part of my life made me shed tears at the end for its authenticity. Well done Elizabeth Strout and thank you to the storyteller Kimberley Farr 😊

Poignant

Read this book twice, back to back, as it was so difficult to put down... so moving and touching. It really grips the heart.

Olive continued....

Loved this. I had a visual the whole time of the Olive in the tv series. I didn’t know about the exiles it was the only part that was laboured for me. Otherwise I looked forward to every chapter, her view on family and her straight talking.

I am mourning the end of this book

So good I don't know how to follow it. Deeply funny, deeply moving. The narrator is outstanding.

Superb!

How does she do it? Such insight into the lives of these ordinary people, their hopes, dreams and everyday worries. Somehow getting older is sad and funny at the same time. Absolutely wonderful !

Oh Olive…. again please !

The narration is, quite simply, brilliant and brings Olive to life. I hated myself for being greedy and listening to it as quickly as possible, instead of stretching it out and savouring it a little more. Love love love

Terrific narration

Olive being Olive, and as good value as before. The narrator is one of the best I’ve ever heard, really made the experience.