As a longtime fan of Elizabeth Strout I was delighted to get early access to her latest offering, and I must say it didn’t disappoint. It was like going back to visit the town and some of the folks we got to know in earlier books. I guess it could be read as a standalone book, but better to read Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton first, to get the richness of the characters and the community. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

It's like a warm hug when you are reunited with these characters. Elizabeth Strout delivers monumental issues through a very local lens, and this is right on target, like so many of her previous novels. I do wonder if someone who has not read her previous novels may have a very different take compared to those of us already familiar with the backstories.

I thoroughly enjoyed the reunion and thank you NetGalley for the SRC

I love Elizabeth Strout.

She could write instructions for watching paint dry and I would read it.

She writes exactly the kind of books I love to read and I was so excited to hear there was a new book from her.

This books is about both Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton, thought it’s more of a sequel to the Oliver Kitteridge books.

I loved the use of storytelling to tell us about the inhabitants of the town. All the characters are so rich and real, all the relationships are so complicated and beautiful.

An Elizabeth Strout book will always be 5 stars to me and this is no exception.

Ordinary people, normal day to day conversations, still Elizabeth Strout can make a good novel from these. Oh, Elizabeth.

How can you not love a book that contains Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess?

Reading Tell Me Everything will be pure pleasure for Elizabeth Strout fans, although this is not a good place to start your Strout journey. It requires the previous knowledge built up over the previous seven titles.

I found the storytelling device a little annoying, but I am not a fan of frame stories, which this leans towards in some of the scenes. I was much happier with the main story about Bob - gentle, kind, honourable Bob - who doesn't know himself as well as others do, but comes to realise what kind of man he wants to be.

With thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
https://bronasbooks.com/2024/09/08/tell-me-everything-elizabeth-strout/

As with all Ms Strout's books this is a slow burn read and the reader needs to allow themselves to relax into its rhythm. It was lovely to catch up with familiar characters and I always enjoy her ability to make ordinary lives shine with the emphasis that every life matters and individual's stories shine.
Thank you to netgalley and Penguin for an advance copy of this book

Tell Me Everything is my second Elizabeth Strout book having previously read My Name Is Lucy Barton as part of a book group. I really struggled with Tell Me Everything and it would have been a DNF had I not received a galley copy to review. There were a lot of characters and I resorted to writing lists to try and keep track of them all and how they related. Some had whole stories but never appeared again in the rest of the book.

The theme of the book is Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge (who I understand are main characters in other novels by the same author) swapping stories. As a reader I felt like I was overhearing conversations without beginning, end or lasting impact. Rather more a stream of inner thoughts and analysis of other people’s actions and conversations. One chapter was on two characters discussing envy.

I’m all for slow and meandering books if they are good for the soul but I found this dull and exhausting with so many stories that just fizzled out. It really wasn’t for me but I can see that this book will appeal to others, especially fans of Elizabeth Strout’s style of writing. Maybe reading her previous books would be helpful so you’d be familiar with the very many characters mentioned. With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Despite revolving around a murder trial, this book is slow and calm. It explores the mundane, unrecorded lives of ordinary people and does so with care and complexity. While at times it was a little too slow, I still thoroughly enjoyed this quiet little story.

Stories within stories. A group of interlinked people who we gradually get to know tell each other secrets and dreams. It’s all loosely based around lawyer Bob’s upcoming court case concerning whether Matt Beach murdered his wife. Bob and his neighbour Lucy talk on their daily walks and through this the other related stories unfold. An enjoyable and absorbing read.

It is always a delight and a joy when Elizabeth Strout returns to her cast of familiar characters, seamlessly intertwining contemporary America and its issues in the ordinary, yet extraordinary, peopje, living through the passing years, changing seasons, and landscapes she writes so beautifully and insightfully about. There have been hard times for so many, the rising house prices in Crosby, Maine, means locals struggle when it comes to buying as many new incomers choose to stay on after the Covid crisis. A rising tide of people find themselves lining up at the food pantry whilst the numbers facing mental health challenges continues to climb throughout the country. These stresses and pressures can be observed, for example, in the likes of Charlene Bibber, cleaning at the Tree Apartments retirement community and food volunteer.

Olive Kitteridge, 90 years old, tells stories to Lucy Barton, to document what would otherwise be forgotten, lending meaning and recognition to lives. Lucy regularly walks with semi-retired lawyer, Bob Burgess, their relationship deepening as their need for each other grows, their partners leaving them unfulfilled, but what to do? We encounter couples who live with ghosts in their marriages and homes, people acting as 'sin eaters', the shifting sands of relationships and life, loss, grief, coming to terms with the past, loneliness, alcoholism, despair, trauma, inescapable suffering, our need to be heard, discussions on the meaning of life, and how wealth might not be the panacea hoped for. Bob is the man others turn to with their problems, a titan when he takes on the case of the reclusive Matt Beach, a self taught gifted artist, under suspicion for the murder of his elderly mother, Gloria, aka Bitch Ball.

This is a profound novel that drips with wisdom and philosophy, which the discerning reader can use to aid and enrich their own lives, such as perhaps reflecting on what undocumented story could lie behind awkward and perhaps unpleasant people that cross our lives. There is the understanding no-one can go into the crevices of another's mind, not even the person themselves, although the illusion we can persists. There is heartbreak and sorrow, change and where getting older is inevitable, but there is an underlying current of compassion, humanity, the value of acquiring other perspectives, redemption and love, coming in a multitude of forms, big and slight, love is everything. Fans of Strout are likely to love this, to all other readers who have yet to read her, I can only strongly urge you to try her, but please start at the beginning! Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

I love Elizabeth Strouts books and this doesn’t disappoint. Following Bob Burgess, a lawyer taking in a murder case, this book is a fantastic myriad of the little connections that make up life. I really enjoyed it, Strout makes communities come to life. I thoroughly recommend this book

Lucy Barton meets Olive Ketteridge in this amalgamation of Elizabeth Strouts two fictional worlds. Revolving round the complicated relationships that Olive calls 'life' we follow Lucy and her ex William as she befriends Olive who is now in a Nursing Home. They share stories of lives uncelebrated amid the dramas of their community- including murder, infidelity, unrequited love and family divisions.
Written in the authors familiar gentle style, conversational and yet intense the reader is immersed in the lives of these people. Possibly the last we will read of some of these characters - but a very fitting way to wind their stories up.

This is my first novel by this author and sadly my last. I have been hearing about these books for so long now and thought I must try one but fail to see the attraction I am afraid. I kept waiting for something to happen! I found it too slow a read for me with nothing to grab my attention . Just not my style I guess.

I’ve loved being back in the community of Crosby, Maine that Strout has created and in the company of the characters I feel like I know.

TELL ME EVERYTHING is Elizabeth Strout’s latest and it picks up and weaves a number of threads from her previous books. While this could be read as a standalone, I do think my reading experience was all the richer for having read all of the Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge books. I also think it would be ideal to have read The Burgess Boys too (I haven’t, but now I’m dying to!).

I was expecting there to be a real focus on Olive finally meeting Lucy (and this does happen, as they exchange stories of ‘unrecorded lives’) but it’s Bob Burgess who seemed to be the central figure with every character and event revolving around him to different degrees. It seemed a little more plot-driven than what I’ve come to expect from these stories, though it never overtook the examination of each character’s interactions, reactions and experiences.

With Strout’s signature style, this was another beautifully meandering of ordinary people’s lives with that perfectly blended insight into human beings - of the mundane with the profound and the tragic. Sometimes Strout could’ve done a little less telling and more showing, as she delved into some topical areas that felt a bit heavy-handed in their explanation for me. It also occasionally felt that some characters’ interactions were a bit convenient, noting this book seems to be a coming together of a range of her characters. No doubt that’s a tricky thing to achieve, but I thought she’s done it with far more subtlety in previous books.

Those very minor issues (for me!) aside, I really enjoyed my time with this one and have no doubt Strout fans will not be disappointed!

When I received the ARC of this novel I suddenly thought I'd better read some previous works since I'd been hearing about how wonderful Olive and Lucy were for years.

I'm afraid I find these novels quite average. I have tried, believe me - I've read all except Lucy By The Sea and I am still bewildered as to why anyone finds these irritating characters adorable.

Tell Me Everything centres around Lucy and her relationship with Bob Burgess with various sub-plots scattered liberally throughout. All the stories are really about love, acceptance, childhoods and honesty.

I think the character I find most irksome is Lucy herself. She is supposed to be this amazing novelist and someone who everyone loves but as she becomes more friendly with Olive the two tell each other stories about unrecorded lives and Lucy constantly interrupts the narrative. I'm amazed Olive (who I much prefer) doesn't tell her to shut up.

So (as with Jane Austen - all of whose books I've read and disliked) I am giving up trying to like Strout's work. For me it goes nowhere. I like a story but these stories are just too circuitous and feel like non-events.

If you like a story with a lot of not much happening then this is for you. If you are already a fan of Olive and Lucy then you will love this too.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Penguin for the advance review copy.

Wonderful depiction of life. This author’s narrative is so real, with all the little details in life and the profound elements of what it means to be human. Another great story from this author - thank you. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Tell Me Everything is the first Elizabeth Strout novel I have read. I found the minutiae of small town life just didn’t hold my attention. I understand that she is a much lauded and loved author and her avid readers will look forward to re-engaging with familiar characters that reappear in this latest novel. I’m afraid that her style of writing is just not for me. Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the eARC.

Only Elizabeth Strout can write a slow-paced novel about the quiet minutiae of everyday life in a small town where nothing much happens (except everything does,) to such great effect. I had this book on my 'to be read' pile for a while, savouring just seeing it there and knowing the pleasure I would get from devouring it a month or so down the line. Her books don't ever have much of a plot, but the depth of emotions and feelings she is able to convey by just a character's look or nod of the head is astounding.
In Tell Me Everything, the familiar characters of Lucy Barton and an elderly Olive Kitteridge feature strongly in the cast, which is led by nice Bob Burgess, who comes to realise that he is in love with his dear friend, Lucy. This is a novel about family, relationships, friendships, misunderstandings, brutality and the things that might have been.
For me, Nothing Strout writes will ever top the wonderful Olive Kitteridge, whiich is one of my favourite books. But Tell Me Everything comes very close. There is something about her measured, sometimes old fashioned style of writing which I absolutely adore.
Thank you NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this book.

Elizabeth Strout returns to her beloved characters Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge in her new novel "Tell Me Everything". In it, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge come together to swap stories and ease one another loneliness, despite each having reservations about the other. Bob Burgess is also a prominent character, who discovers that what he imagines to be true, and what is actually the case, are not always the same.

Whilst this novel has been criticised by some as slow paced, and focused on the minutiae of life, for me it was crammed full of drama including murder, infidelity, alcoholism, intergenerational abuse, suicide and terminal illness. However, Strout's skilful writing hides the drama amongst everyday life. Returning to her novels is like coming back to an old friend and being included in the stories being shared by the residents in Crosby, Maine.

If you are new to Strout, I would recommend reading her earlier works first to get a deeper understanding of the characters. Once you do, you'll be hooked and suddenly have a wealth of stories to read!

Tell me everything is a good title for the book as just about everything is talked about.
I think it’s insightful and could be a great book for book groups because it throws up questions, such as, who do you envy.