I just pre-ordered!
And you should too!
Book Report: Olive Kitteridge
Cover of Olive Kitteridge: Fiction
Yesterday I went home from work early. I didn’t feel well, I was exhausted, and I have a big! traveling! weekend! ahead of me. So, I went home to nap.
After about two hours of sleeping, I woke up, but still wasn’t feeling great, and it sounded like my roommate had people over. So I picked up the book I’d started just the other day: Olive Kitteridge. It’s a novel, composed of vignettes of about a dozen or so people in this little town in Maine, all of whom have Olive in common, in one way or another.
It’s a sad book that made me realize how short life really is. Olive is a mean woman — quick to judge, throws things at her husband, puts her son at a distance, and then doesn’t understand why he doesn’t want her in his adult life — and I don’t want to be anything like Olive.
Sometimes it’s easier to say something cruel and cutting — sometimes it just feels good to use a verbal knife and cut someone down. But it’s not right. It’s not nice. And none of the slights — real or perceived — ever really matter in the long run.
So I’m going to be more loving, while the ones I love are around to listen. I’ll keep Olive in my mind and think what would Olive do? and I’d do the opposite.
