A warm story of how relationships grow and evolve. Honest characters with all their flaws and a little mystery thrown in to move the story. I loved all of them.

I don’t know why exactly, but this book brought me close to tears multiple times. I think because it made me think of all the people I have loved and do love, and the ways in which I do and don’t understand those people, and the beauty that exists in both types of understanding. It made me think of my grandparents and parents, and their pasts, and their meetings and farewells of each other, their joys and tribulations, and the ways in which those have informed my life. It was just a beautiful and poignant read. I had no idea I was reading the third book in a trilogy either! I guess I need to go and buy those other two books as well as a box of tissues. Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC.

Elizabeth Strout creates genuine, prickly, difficult characters and then gives the reader enough insight into their lives and thoughts that they somehow become likable. This is hard to do, and even harder to do when the character is a woman, particularly a mother. And yet, here we have Lucy Barton, back in another novel and still her flawed amazing self. "Oh William!" finds Lucy and her ex-husband, William, mired in various family crises (affairs, divorces, terrible parents). Just when you think you have enough information to understand (or maybe even judge) Lucy and William, Strout turns things around with a new twist.

Elizabeth Strout creates characters that seem as real as the reader's own family or friends. The stream-of-consciousness style of Lucy's voice in "Oh, WIlliam" pulled me in to this story - I felt what Lucy was feeling. Absolutely honest, beautiful writing.

I ADORED Strout's Olive Kittredge books, and really liked My Name is Lucy Barton and the follow-up, Anything is Possible. But this one? Just not for me. I tend to like introspective novels, but this one lacked any depth or, frankly, focal point.
Or maybe I just miss Olive...
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Another masterpiece by Elisabeth Strout! Lucy Barton is once again the main character of the novel. it is told in the first person and Lucy examines her complicated relationship with her ex-husband, William. The writing flows so beautifully; I could not put it down. Strout really brings her characters to life; they are flawed but we still root for them. I loved this book and highly recommend it.

Loved this! It felt a bit edgier than usual for this author but still with gorgeous writing and incredible characters. Prime fodder for book clubs.

This novel is simply gorgeous! Concise, careful prose that brings you again into Lucy Barton's world, this time focusing mostly on her relationship with her ex-husband, William.

While not much happens in this short novel, being immersed in Lucy's thoughts, recollections, and observations about her family and past is so soothing to read.

You definitely do not have to read Elizabeth Strout's previous novels to enjoy this one (I have only read one), but I'm sure it would help. Cannot wait to dip back into and reread previous books in this series. Strout is such a wonderful writer, really sharing clever insights into the human condition and minds of her characters.

4.5 stars!

Thanks to NetGally for the advanced reader copy!

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Elizabeth Strout never disappoints! Lucy and William remain friends after their divorce. She helps him through a difficult period on his life and discovers much about herself, his mother, and William.

This book continues Lucy Barton’s story as she reflects on and works through her relationship with her ex-husband William. I haven’t read Anything is Possible, the second book about Lucy but I don’t think that made a difference. This is introspective and ready for a reader looking for a quieter book about memories and working through relationships.

There is no better author than Ms Strout. Every single book is tight, lyrical and lovely. Her characters are always relatable. Another best seller. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!

I read the Olive books by Elizabeth Strout and loved them so I was super excited to read this new novel of hers. Sadly, this one isn’t for me. The whole time I was reading I kept thinking that this books feels plotless and just like it was going nowhere. Lucy and Williams characters and the interaction between them is just boring. I did not connect with this book at all. I had to push through to finish it.


Thank you Net Galley and Random House Publishing for an ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

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.