This book is written in a different way, a first hand diary/story telling hybrid- once you get used to the rhythm of it you don't notice it. Because of the way it is written you can read through parts that seem unimportant but when you really dive into it and put more thought into it - she is saying so much. The story is cute and heartfelt and the author has a poignant way of telling the story of every day feelings- getting to the real feeling of a life lived.
The story follows Lucy as she gets pulled into her ex husbands journey to find a possible lost relative while throwing in annotations about their life, their children and their marriage. Written in this way it bounced around a lot which prolongs the main story of Williams journey. You get so many good nuggets of the story of life along the way in a real human way.
This is the third book in a series, having not read the previous books It was fine as a stand alone but I do wonder if maybe I was missing things that were referenced to the other books (that she does speak about) but I didn’t realize. Nonetheless, I didn't feel as though I missed anything pertaining to this story but she does reference the other books.
Thank you to Elizabeth Strout for writing this and for Random House for allowing me to read and review it.

Elizabeth Strout is a master at getting the reader invested in and understanding the characters in a story. Oh William! does not disappoint.
Strout’s latest book follows Lucy Barton, from her previous 2 books, as she deals with the death of her second husband, David. Lucy is a well known author in NYC. Her 2 daughter are grown, and she continues to have a good relationship with her former husband, William.
William is going through struggles of his own and Lucy is there to help.
As always, Strout beautifully describes the many ordinary characters in extraordinary ways. From William’s mother Catherine, to William’s latest wife, Estelle, to a long lost sister, Strout engages readers with many characters.
This book was a delight to read.
**I am very grateful to NetGalley for the ARC of this most beautiful book!

I love almost anything written by Elizabeth Strout, including both of the previous books in this series about Lucy Barton, and of course, that beloved Olive! This latest book does not disappoint as it is told in the author’s typical style that gives us powerful insight into the complexities of being human through the characters. In this story, Lucy is in her 70’s and understanding her relationship to her ex-husband William in both the past and present, which leads to further understanding of herself at this time in her life. It’s a relatively short story with dense writing, so allow yourself to fully focus and become submerged in this touching and engaging book.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Random House for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

There is no preamble in the story. You start reading and you’re in. Deep. Anyone who has gone through a failed marriage can feel the poignancy in this story. I did not realize this was the third in a trilogy and now I hunger to read the first two. Strout is a wordsmith extraordinaire. We live in such a different time right now, so it was so inviting to live in someone else’s head and to see that we continue to grow and where we end up is still a mystery. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the ARC.

"I said at one point, mostly to make conversation, “Ours is a very American story.” William said, “Why,” and I said, “Because our fathers were fighting on opposite sides of the war and your mother came from poverty and so did I, and look at us, we’re both (lived in New York and we're successful.) "
This quote from the character Lucy Barton is an example of the insightful writing of Elizabeth Strout. Oh, William is the third in a series of books about Lucy Barton, a wonderful, fully drawn person. She has lost her second husband David, and is drawn back into interacting with her first husband William, the father of her two daughters. This book is another of Strout's memorable novels.

My last in-person visit to my local public library was on Thursday, March 12, 2020, to pick up a bag of books "just in case" the whole coronavirus thing was really a thing. Ha! The K-8 elementary school where I taught sent us home that day with instructions to be prepared to teach via Zoom starting on Monday, March 16, 2020. Little did we know!

Standing at the new fiction shelves, doing my favorite kind of shopping (not a shoe girl, a handbag girl, or even a jewelry girl when it comes to shopping), one of the librarians walked by and said, "Have you read Olive Kitteridge?" I told him no, and went to look for it, but their copy was checked out.

Fast forward to November of 2020, when I had long ago exhausted the bag of books from the library and had started to use Libby/Overdrive to feed my obsession with reading, I remembered that conversation with the librarian and downloaded Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. Within just a few pages I realized that I wasn't reading an ordinary book written by an ordinary author. This was something completely different. I was torn between flying through it in one setting or dragging it out to make it last longer.

Because I was late to the Strout party, I was lucky enough to download its sequel, Olive Again, just a few months later. After I blew through that one, I I read I Am Lucy Barton. Once I was fully vaccinated, I made my maiden voyage to my favorite used bookstore and bought copies of all the Strout titles there. I'm so happy I have some from her back list to still read: Anything is Possible (which I think is part of the Lucy Barton storyline), The Burgess Boys, Abide with Me, and Amy and Isabelle. Needless to say, I am a fan for life.

And then, NetGalley listed Strout's latest novel, Oh William! Of course I requested it immediately. And just like the others, I could not put it down. I don't know how she does it, but it only takes a paragraph or two and I'm fully immersed in whatever world Elizabeth Strout chooses to create.

To be honest, Oh William! to me is quite different from Olive Kitteridge and her sequel. Where I found Olive's story to be inspirational and uplifting, I found Lucy and William to be raw and disturbing. How can I like both ends of the spectrum? Well, I guess that is the magic of Strout's writing for me.

In promotional materials for Oh William! Strout said it was inspired by the deep secrets being unearthed by the DNA ancestry testing now available. While that is one of the story arcs in Oh William!, I didn't consider it to be the main one. For me, the book is a continuation of the continuous untangling and re-tangling of the relationship between Lucy and William. In both Lucy Barton and Oh William, there were things I loved about both Lucy and William, but there were also things I hated about both those characters as well. Just like in real life, nothing is all good or all bad, and these two people are perfect examples of that. Strout even has a quote on her website that drives this home, "It is not 'good' or 'bad' that interests me as a writer, but the murkiness of human experience and the consistent imperfections of our lives." Murky completely describes Lucy and William's relationship, where each individual is a character in the story and their relationship is another character entirely.

For fans of Elizabeth Strout, Oh William! will be another home run. If you are new to Elizabeth Strout's work, may I suggest you start with Olive Kitteridge, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009. There you will find the brilliance of how Strout intertwines thirteen short stories with Olive being the constant that ties it all together in her flawed and fascinating way.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this new novel.

I loved both of Elizabeth Strout's previous two books about Lucy Barton, My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible, but Oh William! may be the best one of all. It's a novel (as opposed to the linked short stories that Strout also does so well) in which Lucy tells us about her ongoing and complex relationship with William, her first husband, their daughters, her career, and her childhood. Because of Strout's wonderful prose and writing style, reading the book is almost like having a conversation with Lucy. She is one of the most honest and self-aware characters I've encountered in a book, and I would gladly read more about her. She has fears, insecurities, doubts, struggles, and recognizes her own failings, and reading this may help us to recognize some of the same within ourselves. Highly, highly recommended.

"But when I think Oh William!, don't I mean Oh Lucy! too?
Didn't I mean Oh Everyone, Oh dear Everybody in this whole wide world, we do not know anybody, not even ourselves!
Except a little, tiny, tiny bit we do.
But we are all mythologies, mysterious. We are all mysteries, is what I mean.
This may be the only thing in the world I know to be true."

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book.

So this book is definitely different in the way it is written and presented to the reader. It’s well done but definitely different cadence of reading than you would normally find in a novel.

Oh William! is a book to savor, perfect for fans of Elizabeth's Strout's contemplative, literary style. Since this is the third book in the Amgash series, readers will be well served to have read the other two first. Although Oh William! can stand alone, it's a richer reading experience if you have the background on the characters. For those already familiar with the series, this is a seamless continuation. Lucy is just as introspective as ever. While her loneliness grates at times, she is a lovely and genuine character. I enjoyed reading her perspectives on life and those around her, including her ex-husband, William. She comes across as wise, but not perfectly so. The plot is like what we've come to expect from Strout; it's there but does not drive the narrative. The theme revolves around how well we can know anyone, including ourselves. Ultimately, I prefer the Olive Kitteridge books, but Lucy's life story provides pleasant reading as well.

Elizabeth Strout's "Oh William!" won't disappoint her fans who have been following Lucy Barton throughout her other novels. Both William and Lucy are no longer married, William's much younger wife and their young daughter upped and left without warning, and Lucy's husband died. We see Lucy and William reunite after these losses, and heading off to Maine, where William wants to scout an area where he learned through a DNA find your roots kit that he has a relative. We watch them return to their old selves, their old ways, and then change a bit into their newer selves, as they rehash their past, and prepare to take off on a familiar island vacation. As usual, the novel is entertaining and engaging, providing readers with levity and thought.

Characters: 5/5 Plot 3.5/5 Writing: 5/5

I loved this deeply meditative book about how much we can really know one another. This is written as a novelized memoir of the fictional character introduced in a previous work — I am Lucy Barton. It felt so incredibly real to me that it’s hard to remember that she is a work of fiction. Here, Lucy reflects on her first husband — William — with whom she is still friendly and the prior and current relationship between them. The “action” takes place a year after Lucy’s second husband has died and William’s third wife has left him.

I resonated with so many of the feelings and experiences described in this book. Strout has a beautiful and apt writing style that captures the essence of what is important in any human interaction — even within oneself. I was often brought to tears — not because anything particularly sad was happening — but because she captured it so perfectly.

Some great lines:
“Grief is such a - oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you.”

I also loved the last line but I won’t list it here — you need to read the rest of them first!

Oh! How I loved this book! I am a big Elizabeth Strout fan so I was excited to read this - and I couldn’t put it down. I love the writing style- told from Lucy Barton’s point of view- full of her thoughts, her afterthoughts, colored with the wisdom of experience from a woman who has lived a full life. Every time she said “Oh, William!”, she was replicating my thoughts, exactly. I loved the examination of normal, human frailties. Everyone can relate. A must read, especially after a year with so little human interaction.
Thank you, Netgalley, for providing me with an advanced copy.

Lucy continues her story of her life begun in I AM LUCY BARTON by talking conversationally to the reader about her first husband, William. Lucy's second husband, David, died a year ago and in her grief she also feels grief for William, who is still alive and seventy-one. Lucy and William had been married for twenty years, have two daughters, and are still friendly.

4.5. Elizabeth Strout is one of my favorite authors. I have always enjoyed reading her novels (including Olive Kitteridge, Olive Again, Amy and Isabelle) but some more than others. I also have very much enjoyed the Amgash/Lucy Barton series, My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible, so I was excited when I saw she wrote another in this series, Oh William. We see the protagonist, Lucy Barton, in her later years in her sixties, after a tortuous childhood, successful career as a writer, and as a wife (amicably divorced from William in her first marriage and then widowed in her second from David, the latter who she seems to have been closer to for many reasons described in the novel) and mother. Strout so successfully has been able to integrate this novel with her earlier ones in this series, by focusing on Lucy's earlier family life and then weaving in her later life with William, her children and to a lesser extent David. Her familiar themes continue: including family, relationships, love, loss, loneliness, hurt, poverty, insecurities, and secrets. But the circle gets larger when we are introduced to William, his life story and family. This may not be my favorite of this grouping yet it is another masterpiece in its own right. The prose is magnificent: crisp and concise. As in her other novels, she truly captures the human spirit and condition in the most realistic sense. Ms. Strout is an extremely gifted writer and I look forward to many more from her. Thank you so much NetGalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for an unbiased and candid review.

This is the third book in the Amgash series. While the author is a prize winner, I found this book sad and a bit dull. If you want to find out more about Lucy & William go for it. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

In Oh William!, author Elizabeth Strout once again immerses the reader in the world of Lucy Barton, a late-middle aged writer living in New York City who has just lost her second husband. Following My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible, this third installment of the Amgash Series finds Lucy reconnecting with her first husband William, from whom she is long-since divorced but still on friendly terms, partly for the sake of their two adult daughters. The story, which is related entirely from Lucy’s point of view, involves her helping William investigate and process a major, unsettling revelation regarding his family upbringing. Along the way, Lucy’s introspective nature also uncovers a great many truths from her own past that she has yet to face.

I really enjoyed reading this novel, although perhaps not quite as much as some of the author’s past work. The writing was certainly splendid; it was very impressive how deeply we were able to get inside Lucy’s head and experience all of the joy, fear, angst, hope, and regret of this complex and thoughtful character. Also, the plot, which was not always the primary focus of the work, contained enough twists and surprises to keep things interesting until the end. On the other hand, there were parts of the tale that were repetitious—for instance, basic facts about some of the characters were repeated unnecessarily—and far too frequently Lucy said something to the effect of “I’ve already written about this before, so I’m not going to say it again here,” which only served as a reminder that this book should probably not be read as a stand-alone project. Nevertheless, this was a satisfying story and one that I can easily recommend.

Finally, it is hard for me to resist the urge to compare the character of Lucy Barton with that of Olive Kitteridge, who is another fully formed creation from Strout’s remarkable imagination. Of course, the two characters differ greatly in most meaningful ways: Olive is a curmudgeonly busy body who cannot seem to get out of her own way, while Lucy is often inwardly focused to the point where she feels invisible at the same time she is loved by everyone around her. For me, Olive represents the more fascinating and compelling portrayal, but I find Lucy’s voice to be deeply affecting as well. The fact that both characters came from the heart and mind of the same writer is simply amazing.

Elizabeth Strout is a master of character development and exploring relationships between characters. In this novel Lucy Barton has just lost her husband David and her ex, William, invites her to go on a trip with him to find out about a sister that he never knew. While Strout explores the complexities of their relationship and their relationships with other family members, I felt at times I was in the midst of the Forest Gump movie. There were just too many colloquialisms. I know these can be used to make the characters endearing and relatable, but it was just too much for me.
For fans of Strout, this will be a good read, and while I've enjoyed her other books, this just did not resonate with me.

The lives surrounding Lucy Barton continue, told in her own voice, which means that of the wise and perceptive Elizabeth Strout who provides such cleareyed assessments. Lucy is in mourning for her second husband who has been gone for a year now, when her first husband, with whom she maintains a cordial relationship, reaches out to her to investigate a family secret that has come to light thanks to one of those "online heredity sites." I could read her forever. Peripheral characters from The Burgess Boys make fleeting appearances, but I hope that Lucy continues and this isn't merely a trilogy.

Not my favorite of this trilogy…..but I enjoyed it.
The beginning was FANTASTIC - hooked instantly!
It slowly started to go downhill at William‘s 70th birthday party.
Too much too soon with Lucy‘s judgment of what people were wearing, of speeches given, and the guests who attended.
I like to see Lucy use her critical voice for things much more directly relevant to her, than to who was wearing what, or gave the best birthday speech.
There was something lost in Lucy‘s voice that I deeply cherished from her in last two books.

I don’t think it matters what I say…. or what I rate this.
Elizabeth Strout fans will read it!
I hope readers DO LOVE IT!

Elizabeth Strout is enmesh with relationships. I like that quality myself - and value the type of introspective writing she contributes to the world. Ordinary people - whose lives matter!!
Her humanity as a writer, and a person, comes through beautifully.
That said- the ‘content’ - storytelling - of ‘this’ tale didn’t interest me as much as her other books.

I still have a warm heart for this lovely author.

I’m not fully sure what the ultimate purpose was for this ‘entire’ book …. I felt it was a little bit disjointed to be honest.
But here are a couple treasures that had me giggling.

“Your khakis are too short and it depresses the hell out of me. Jesus, William, you look like a ‘dork’”.


Oh William, I thought. Oh William”
“He looked exhausted; there were darkish circles around his eyes. He said ‘Hi Button’ and sat down next to me. He had with him a small suitcase with wheels, it was dark brown, too toned. I understood that it was expensive. He looked at my wheelie suitcase which was a blazing violent color, and he said, ‘Really?’”

Many thanks to Random House, Netgalley, and Elizabeth
Strout for the privilege of this advance copy.

3.5 rating
> rating UP ….. for the love that Elizabeth is and her body of work in general.

Elizabeth Strout has written another brilliant novel.Lucy Barton & William long divorced embark on a road trip that will reveal long hidden secrets and truth about their relationship. Absolutely loved this character driven novel s I’ve loved all the authors novels.#netgalley#randomhouse