Olive Kitteridge

Every story in Olive Kitteridge lands on suicide, infidelity, aging, or loneliness, and some readers experience thirteen chapters of that as numbing rather than moving; one writes it “might be the first time I wish I could give zero stars.” Olive herself splits readers on her own terms, unpleasant rather than complex to the ones who can't find the affection other reviews describe. The opening story centers on husband Henry instead of Olive, a structural surprise some readers resent before the format even settles in. Prose complaints follow: readers flag “bloated similes” and a “hovering distant voice” that keeps the town at arm's length. One reader dismisses the small-town Maine suffering outright as “common-man-rural sorrow porn.”