fran kaplan

You will not be disappointed in this novel, as Elizabeth Strout delivers characters so real in their complexity. With deftness and sufficient detail, as a reader you will be taken to the inside. When the close of this book comes, I felt that she had conveyed a wisdom, beyond the telling of a book that kept me entertained.

Approach this book as you might view a painterly painting. Not one that has every detail sharply rendered, but a canvas with enough intelligence and sensitivity, that you can inhabit it. The author reveals her narrator’s feelings, deep ones, sometimes like the partial peeling of a bruised piece of fruit. To go deeper and see more is not always necessary; the reader know that beyond the wall of economical writing, lies the pain. At the close of this novel, I was ready to part ways with our main character, but not before blowing her a kiss.