Tell Me Everything: Oprah's Book Club: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout
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Web ID: 19875974Heartwarming
I so enjoyed this book. I previously read Olive Kitteridge, so I was looking forward to revisiting Crosby, Maine and the cast of characters. Olive, Lucy and Bob are the main characters and each have so much going on. The book and its cast of characters could be in any town with the townsfolk having their own life stories. This book is the fifth book in the Amgash series. However, each book can be read as a stand alone. #NetGalley, #RandomHousePublishingGroup, #ElizabethStrout and #TellMeEverything.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Meet up again with writer Lucy Barton in Maine
In Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout, the reader meets up again with writer Lucy Barton. She's still living in Maine with her ex-husband William and taking walks with her good friend Bob Burgess. The latest installment weaves many stories into one cohesive unit. Lucy reaches a crossroads with her ex and with Bob as she navigates mild depression and sharing stories with Olive Kitteridge. Olive lives in a retirement community near her friend Isabelle and visits with Lucy. She's still her cantankerous self. Meanwhile, Bob takes on a murder investigation involving a son allegedly murdering his elderly mother while dealing with his past and future. I have to say this is my favorite installment of this series involving Lucy. The stories come together and bring all the elements of a good book. You have a mystery with the murder investigation, romance with unlikely pairings, and the wonder of stories about the many residents who have come and gone from Crosby, Maine, the fictional town where they live. You also have family drama among both Lucy's family and Bob's family that any reader could relate to in some way. As always, the language is spare yet musical. Each story takes you along, and you find yourself truly empathizing with the characters. You may see yourself in them or those you love. You root for them and feel sadness when they make difficult choices or face serious issues. I really liked how all the characters stemmed from many of Strout's books and all shared the pages in this novel. I'm not sure what the author could do next with this unexpectedly formed series. Maybe introduce another family or maybe focus on the younger generation. It will be interesting to see how she approaches the universe she's developed. While it's not necessary to read the other novels, I cannot say it's a stand-alone book either. You may need to dive into the back story of all the characters mentioned. I love when a writer brings past characters into a new novel, whether they're part of the main plots or just a cameo appearance. It's akin to real life.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
The Best Yet About All These Wonderful Characters!
I don't know how Strout does it, but she does it so well, unveiling her characters so that we know them like we know ourselves. She's remarkable as are each of her characters.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Another beautiful read from one of my favorites
Who wouldn't love the writing style of Elizabeth Strout? She makes me feel like we're in a comfy den and she's telling me about our friend's life. And neither of us feels guilty for being concerned about how it ends. We care, and it shows. Thank you to Random House Publishing Group- Random House for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Vulnerable and Heartfelt
👉🏻For my friends who want a novel about “new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.” TELL ME EVERYTHING by Elizabeth Strout (Kimberly Farr, Narrator) 🎧Thanks, @prhaudio, for the #gifted audiobook and @randomhouse for the review copy via #NetGalley. #PRHAudioPartner #sponsored (Available Now) 11 Hours Come back with me to Crosby, Maine, and visit with our friends and neighbors Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more as they talk, tell stories, and share what means most to them. I adored both OLIVE KITTERIDGE and OLIVE, AGAIN, but I didn’t connect with MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON. I had such a bad experience that I avoided reading the following books despite how much my friends loved them. So, why did I jump into this one? FOMO, I guess. And oh, it was lovely. I adored Lucy, Olive was her usual crotchety but fascinating self, and the other characters were interesting, flawed, and compelling. But my favorite, by far, was Bob Burgess. Oh, Bob. How I loved your sweet, honest, and kind self. This is one of those stories that’s more about conversation than a fast-moving plot (though there was a murder mystery in this one, which I enjoyed), but the conversations are worth the price of admission. They were so vulnerable and heartfelt, so realistic that it felt voyeuristic. So, yes, I am circling back to the other Lucy Barton books, especially if they are audiobooks narrated by Kimberly Farr. She perfectly captured the various characters in Crosby, Maine, and I want to spend more time with each and every one of them.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
4.5 touching stars, rounded up
“And then off they went for their walk. Lucy said, ‘Tell me everything. Tell me every single thing. And don’t leave anything out.’” “It is one more story of an unrecorded life.” This is the first Elizabeth Strout novel I’ve read, and while I felt a bit like I missed the beginning of ‘the movie,’ the book really worked for me. As expected, it had a few ‘sappy’ moments, but it feels honest and true. I enjoyed it enough to go back and read others in the series! While the plot moves steadily forward, the book is mostly a character study. Strout excels at writing vulnerable, interesting, real characters. She delves into how their backgrounds made them who they are – and advocates not judging, when you don’t know their stories. And stories she tells! The stories felt a bit random at first, but I came to realize they are placed with care into the narrative. Main Maine character, Bob Burgess, is a bit too good to be true, always helping others. He goes for walks with his friend, Lucy Barton, who is an excellent listener. They ‘fall in love’ but are married to other people. Bob runs into some challenges and moral dilemmas, but all is well, “because you’re still Bob Burgess. Nothing can take that away.” Who you are matters. I love the moral way Strout resolves this. Dialog always flows smoothly and brings up intriguing questions. Great material for book groups! Trigger warnings – suicide and child sexual abuse are mentioned, but the material is rated PG, nothing graphic. “People suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer. Everyone does. Those who think they’ve not suffered are lying to themselves.” Tell me Everything has suffering, but mostly, it has hope, love, and people caring for each other. A treasure. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Another moving, powerful read.
Tell Me Everything is the fifth book in the Amgash series by best-selling, Pulitzer Prize winning American author, Elizabeth Strout. Lucy Barton and her ex-husband Willian Gerhardt have been in Crosby, Maine for two years now, having quit New York City at the start of the pandemic. They have a house, Lucy does some volunteer work and writes in her little studio in town, and William works on developing potato varieties resistant to climate change. Lucy has a close friendship with Bob Burgess, himself returned to Maine from New York City some fifteen years earlier. Bob also does some volunteer work, caring for solitary elders, and a bit of legal work from his office in Shirley Falls, but each looks forward to their regular walks by the river where they talk, Bob smokes an illicit cigarette, and they understand each other very well. All manner of topics are covered: envy, knowing one’s partner, grief, the meaning of life. And about some things: “’Don’t think about it.’ And she smiled at him to indicate their joke about how they both thought of things too much.” Now ninety, Olive Kitteridge is a resident of the Maple Tree Apartments where she makes sure to daily visit her best friend, Isabelle Goodrow, over the bridge in higher care. She’s heard about the author newly come to Crosby, make a point of reading her books, and decides she may have a story that would interest Lucy Barton. She’s initially unimpressed by this mousy-looking little woman, is a little sharp, but that changes as they spend time together. Lucy and Olive begin exchanging stories of what they call unrecorded lives. Sometimes they are interesting, sometimes they seem to lack a point, but Lucy says “People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.” There are stories of family members, townspeople, and acquaintances whose lives contain thwarted love, cruelty, devotion, heartbreak, abuse, harassment, alcoholism, infidelity, sadness, and loneliness, but also beauty. Somewhat in the background of life in Crosby, a woman who notoriously terrified the children when she was on school canteen duty, Gloria Beach goes missing while her youngest son Matthew is out getting groceries. A thorough search yields nothing, and investigations uncover a car hired with a stolen licence and credit card, the owner of which has a very strong alibi. The case goes cold. When a body is found, months later, suspicion hangs over Matthew Beach. His sister, Diana begs Bob to take the case. When the woman’s will is located, it gives Matthew a motive, and it doesn’t help his case that Bob hears several women remark that they couldn’t blame him if he had killed her. Matthew is an enigmatic figure, a talented artist lacking social skills, but Bob is determined to help the man, even if he’s not telling the whole truth. As always, Strout gives the reader a wonderful cast of characters with palpable emotions. Big-hearted Bob Burgess, unaware of his worth, excels at absorbing the suffering of others. In the course of the year, he loses a member of his extended family, almost loses another, tries to broker peace between a father and son, gives over and above care to a needy client, and, almost unwittingly, saves a good friendship from irreparable damage that acting on a crush would have wrought. Lucy is now a grandmother but worries that she has become inconsequential to her daughters, while ageing Olive has lost little of her acerbic wit. Their chats are full of wisdom and insightful observations. Some people depend on a linchpin “I wonder how many people out there are able to be strong—or strong enough— because of the person they’re married to.” Strout nails it on grief: “He was silently catapulted into an entirely new country, one he had never known existed, and it was a country of quietness and solitariness in a way that he could not—quite seriously—believe. A terrible silence seemed to surround him, he could not feel himself fully present in the world… And he understood then that this was a private club, and a quiet one, and no stranger passing him on the street would know that he was a member, just as he would not know if they were a member. He wanted to stop people he saw, older people especially who were walking alone, he wanted to say— Did your spouse die?” Her writing, its quality, style and subject matter, is reminiscent of Sebastian Barry with shades of Anne Tyler. Strout writes about ordinary people leading what they believe are ordinary lives (although there are definitely some quirky ones doing strange things amongst them, like the vet giving a demented dog acupuncture) and she does it with exquisite yet succinct prose. Another moving, powerful read. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Penguin UK Viking.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Lovely Story Exposing Our Human Fragility
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout continues her wonderful, warm, and deeply human Amgash series about life in the small, coastal town of Crosby, Maine with novel #5, TELL ME EVERYTHING. No wonder this is an Oprah Book Club pick! For those who have read all or part of this series, here's a chance to catch up with some of Strout's most beloved characters like Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, Lucy Barton, and Lucy's ex-husband William. Like Jane Austen, Strout skillfully weaves even the mundane aspects of daily lives into compelling fiction. Friendship, frictions within marriage, infatuation, childhood trauma, aging, gossip -- all handled with great compassion and empathy. And simply by witnessing the humanity of these characters, we readers have the chance to see what is really important in life. Strout is an exceptional writer. With believable dialog and concise but powerful descriptions, she crafts such a vivid picture of life in this small Maine town and all the ways its residents impact the lives of one another. Often in ways they don't recognize. It's just a lovely novel full of three dimensional people who are just trying to do their best. Just like the rest of us. I recommend not only the Amgash series, but all her novels -- many of which have received assorted awards. Strout doesn't disappoint.
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