In "Tell Me Everything" the whole gang is alive and well in Crosby, Maine with some side action in New York City. Bob Burgess (married to Margaret Estaver, a Unitarian minister) has a deep friendship (not physical) with Lucy Barton. Lucy still lives with William. Olive Kitteridge (90 years old) develops a friendship with Lucy Barton. Lucy visits Olive and they tell each other true stories.There is a murder sub-plot, and a chance that Margaret will lose her job. Bob's brother, Jim, lives in NYC and suffers some tragedy. To tell more gives away too much. Strout has remained true to her/ her character's fundamentally humane/humanist view of life. Strout is following them for another year, post-pandemic. There is not a compelling plot or plot device. If you like Strout's previous work, you will like this book. I did. However, this book seems like it is either a winding-down or swimming in place. "Olive Again" and "Oh, William" had much more propulsion than "Tell Me Everything". I wonder and hope for what is next from Elizabeth Strout. It is remarkable that she has tied these characters together.

No one does it like Elizabeth Strout. It was so special to dive back into the world of Olive Kitteridge and Crosby, Maine. I can’t wait to reread Tell Me Everything once it’s published this fall!

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you @netgalley for the copy of Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. These books are like catching up with old friends. I find the stories engaging and comforting. Elizabeth Strout even manages to turn a story about a death to be uplifting. I love how the characters all care for each other. I do wish we had more of Olive because I find her interesting, but she isn’t the focus of this book. This focuses on Bob Burgess and Lucy Barton, but even Lucy is confined mostly to her interactions with Bob. Lucy and Bob have become friends and their friendship blossoms into a bit more. While they navigate their relationship as well as their current partners, Bob becomes enraged in a case of a murder investigation. Of course this isn’t a thriller, but how people interact and care for each other.

Elizabeth Strout is one of my most favorite authors, and Tell Me Everything did not disappoint! This book brings together the characters from her previous books -- Bob Burgess, Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Barton, and all the other characters in their orbits -- into one lovely, exceptionally readable story. Lucy and William are still living in their pandemic getaway house in Maine. Lucy and Bob Burgess have struck up a close friendship, and their friendship is one plotline of this book. Lucy and Olive also get together and share stories with each other. Bob takes on a curious local legal case that provides another main plotline. Throughout it all, we get the pleasure of Elizabeth Strout's wonderful storytelling that brings these characters fully to life, with all their foibles and flaws, doubts and misunderstandings, and lots of love. Lucy Barton describes it best: "People and the lives they lead. That's the point."

Elizabeth Strout is just the best of the best. Tell Me Everything is a gorgeous, and at times heartbreaking, character driven novels full of insight and empathy.

Having read nothing about the plot in advance, my jaw dropped when I realized some of the most beloved characters from her previous novels intersect in Tell Me Everything. While this can definitely be read and enjoyed as a stand alone, to really appreciate the book, I would highly recommend reading her previous works, more specifically The Burgess Boys, Olive Kitteridge, Olive Again, and the whole Lucy Barton series.

Tell Me Everything picks off where Lucy By the Sea ends. Lucy and Bob Burgess have developed a close friendship, and as a result, Lucy meets now 90 year old Olive, who has a story to share with her. It’s a treat to watch these characters cross paths and interact with one another. As always, Strout really captures the nuisances and complexities of life and of these character’s relationships with one another and with their own pasts. While most of the novel is character driven, there’s still an intriguing plot involving a family murder, and such interesting secondary characters, they could all warrant novels of their own.

This was such a beautiful book and such a joy to read. I’ll be eagerly waiting for whatever Strout writes next. Thank you so much to Net Galley for the chance to read and review.

I am an Olive fan for life. Elizabeth Strout knows how to cut to the essence of her characters and there’s something so compelling about her writing. I lovedddd this one. I keep thinking about it ❤️

I was sad to read the last page of this book. In fact I tried to make it last as long as possible but everything comes to an end - both good and bad. In this book we are back in Maine with the cast of characters we have met before in Elizabeth Strout's books. There is Olive, Lucy, Bob, William, Margaret. Bob and Lucy walk together often and talk about their lives. They are getting closer together. Lucy meets Olive in her senior's home and they tell each other stories about "unrecorded lives". Margaret's job as minister of the church is threatened by one of her parishioners; she is very anxious about her future. And there is a mystery involved as well - one of the women has disappeared and her body is found in a rental car in an abandoned quarry. Her son, Matt, who lives with her is suspected of murdering her and Bob takes the case to defend him. It turns out that Matt needs more than a defence attorney and Bob, in his humble way, is there for Matt.
Elizabeth Strout writes in a way that feels like I'm sitting across the kitchen table having coffee with her. I have read most of her books starting with Lucy By The Sea thanks to Netgalley. Strout writes with empathy for all her characters even when they make mistakes or do something horrible. I hope she continues to follow the lives of these people and others who come into their sphere.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC of this book - I gave me great joy to read it.

Lucy Barton meets Olive Kitteridge. They tell each other stories about people they know. Some stories have obvious points, some don't, as happens in real life. They struggle with the aftermath of the pandemic and the things people do to one another. Life goes on, as we’ve come to expect in Crosby, Maine.

Elizabeth Strout writes about real people in real situations in real places in <i>Tell Me Everything</i>. That they’re fictional people in fictional situations in fictional places seems almost irrelevant. Strout excels in creating true-to-life characters, so true-to-life that encountering them, their lives, and their situations in <i>Tell Me Everything</i> made this reader feel like a voyeur, as if I was eavesdropping on the most intimate private details and secrets sometimes better left unknown and untold. <i>Tell Me Everything</i> is shockingly believable, disorienting, and sometimes upsetting in its honesty.

<i>Tell Me Everything</i> is Strout’s tenth novel. They’re all linked, sometimes tightly and sometimes loosely, with the same characters and the same places recurring again and again. In <i>Tell Me Everything</i>, Strout reintroduces us to Shirley Falls and Crosby, Maine, a small town and an even smaller town. Bob Burgess, Lucy Barton, and Olive Kittredge all reappear in central roles, as do other less central characters. I find myself not particularly liking or disliking these characters any more — Bob remains goodhearted, hapless, and married to Margaret; Lucy remains intrusive, sad, and unhappily together with her first husband William; and Olive remains crusty and judgmental. Bob and Lucy are already on or soon to be on Medicare, but they’re not too old to fall embarrassingly and fruitlessly in love. Bob realizes that <i>”People did not care, except for maybe one minutes. It was not their fault, most just could not really care past their own experiences.”</i> But despite all this, Bob and Lucy yearn for connections and understanding: with each other, with their friends and family, and with their neighbors. And they yearn to be able to tell somebody <i>everything</i>, no matter how embarrassing or hurtful, and ache with loneliness when they realize that they often can’t tell their closest friends and spouses <i>everthing</i>. In <i>Tell Me Everything</i>, it’s the characters who can’t bring themselves to tell everything who seem the most disconnected.

Central to <i>Tell Me Everything</I> is Lucy’s fascination with <i>unrecorded lives</i>, the stories of superficially ordinary people living superficially ordinary lives. But for Lucy and then for Olive, and undoubtedly for Strout as their creator, the seeming ordinariness of those lives hide extraordinary stories.

Elizabeth Strout, like Louise Erdrich, has written individually fine novels that, taken together as bodies of work, far exceed the substantial strengths of any of their individual novels. Reading Strout’s ten novels, I’ve felt as if I’ve lived in Amgash, Illinois, and Crosby, Maine, and come to know their people.

In "Tell Me Everything," Elizabeth Strout's characters take the book title literally as they gossip (Sorry. They tell "stories.") about everyone they meet or have ever met in their lifetimes.

Our characters are familiar. Lucy Barton. Olive Kitteridge. Bob and Jim Burgess. Don't forget William. Everyone gathers again in a story that examines personal relationships and how traumas can affect a person's outlook, success and future relationships.

This time, Strout offers up a murder mystery, too. Matt, considered by himself and most others to be a decidedly odd duck, is suspected of killing his mother, dubbed Bitch Ball or Beach Ball by students at the school where she worked. Matt's an easy suspect, in part, because he likes to paint portraits of pregnant women sans their clothing. His work is stunning, though.

Bob, who is a lawyer, steps in to defend Matt. That is the primary "story" of the novel. The bulk of the tome is devoted to conversations and observations about people.

Strout has a definitive writing style. Readers familiar with her other stories featuring these same characters will know what to expect.

4+ stars
The first half of this book moved quite slow for me, but I was trying to remember the details of the past lives of these characters, all whom I’ve met before.. but it’s been awhile… and here they were .. all together.
Olive, and Lucy both with Bob and William and all their relationships, etc.
The main focus.. the history of unrecorded lives and the meaning of life.
Olive still had moments of being… well, Olive!
It ended up being very good and … one huge takeaway..
Bob Burgess is a very good man!
Can’t wait to see if we will hear from these people again

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House Publishing and Elizabeth Strout (one of my favorite authors)

Publishing date August 13, 2024

This was my third book by Elizabeth Strout, having loved the two which precede this work. I read about a third of it and simply found that I could not get into the book. While I “knew” the characters from the last two books I realized I don’t really care about the, so I am setting this aside.

That doesn’t mean it’s not a good book, but it has not been a good read for me.

This is the first book by the author I've read, so I didn't know the backstories of the characters, and had no preconceived ideas about the story. This took a while for me to get invested in both characters and story. I rather enjoyed the narrative style, but was a little confused by the social connections and (former) marriages of several of the characters. I grew into the story, and when it ended, I felt a sense of loss. I wanted it to continue.

That tells me a lot.

I received a complimentary copy of the novel from the publisher and NetGalley, and my review is being left freely.

Reading an Elizabeth Strout book is like returning home after a long absence. My favorite characters are here - Lucy Barton, Bob Burgess and Olive Kitteridge. They are still pondering life’s meaning and reminiscing about their own pasts and the pasts of others.

Each character has their own story to tell, characterized by their childhoods, their friendships and their life experiences. This is not a book filled with drama and chaos, it’s a book of reverence and deep thinking.

If you haven’t read any Elizabeth Strout books, you are missing out on some great treasures. I highly recommend this book and give it a five star rating. Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the advanced copy.

5 very, very well-deserved stars for Strout's latest, "Tell Me Everything" set in Crosby, Maine where her most indelible fictional characters all have a meet-up, of sorts. The story is very much about Bob Burgess, but he's become very close to Lucy Barton with whom he goes for walks. And Lucy starts visiting Olive Kittridge, now ninety & still feisty. Bob is also involved in a murder case (he's an attorney), so there's a touch of mystery, but this is primarily a character-driven novel with an incredible sense of place and intense depth. I savored it & didn't want it to end. The dialogue is deep and moving, yet at times very simple & light. Elizabeth Strout has written her best here! My very sincere thanks to Net Alley & the publisher for the complimentary DRC - my most sincere pleasure to review it!

Iv'e long loved this author as well as the Olive Kittridge series. They stand alone, but if you've read them all, you feel like you're a member of the community. The way Elizabeth Strout writes truly made me feel like she knew me, like she understands the nuances of the human experience, relationships, aging and making your own way. Olive just makes me laugh every time she makes an entrance...she tells it like it is for sure. I hope you'll try this novel and get immersed in their world.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Random House and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.
All opinions are my own.

Elizabeth Strout is one of my favoirite writers, Loved the story, the writing and the continuation of the characters. Keep them coming .

3.5 stars. Lucy Barton meets Olive Kitteridge! I don't know. Lucy had some uphill lifting to get me to like her again after her last book, and she hasn't entirely won me back in this novel, though it is an improvement. These books are nicely written, and there is a sweetness to them that I appreciate, but I'm beginning to feel they are not for me - not enough bite. I did like the ending, but not enough to bump it to a fourth star. It was fine.

This is a very interesting story about the human experience and why we do the things we do. One of my favorite parts about a Elizabeth Strout story is that you truly feel apart of the people in the story. You feel like you are one of the neighbors who are being update with the goings on with the people you know. And this particular story has a lot to do with Bob Burgess, who not only helps anyone at the drop of a hat but is also an amazing person.
I loved all of the side stories that are part of the Bob's story, like Pam, Jim, Matt and Margaret. They are all normal people who are dealing with humbling experiences but still keep going even though it is very hard and what makes it easier for them to get through their ordeals is Bob's listening and his heart to help. It was truly wonderful to see how Bob helped all of these people and made a differences, especially when he found himself struggling with his feeling toward Lucy and yet never crossed that line. He is truly a ordinary hero who never turns away from something hard when it's the right thing to do.
There is a part of the story that involves Lucy and Olive, but it feels like just an extension of the whole story about the human condition and that humans have both good part and bad parts of our lives and that person has decide what to do with each experience.

I want to thank Random House Publishing Group - Random House | Random House and NetGalley for an advance copy of a story about the human experience.

Elizabeth Strout draws us into the world of Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Barton and especially Bob Burgess. These inhabitants of Maine and New York interact in a way we cherish from Strout's other novels, and continue to touch our hearts and move us. Olive Kitteridge is in a retirement community and is as ornery as ever. Lucy Barton is in Maine (coming from New York), and is sharing stories .with Olive. Bob Burgess also shares stories and time with Lucy, which leads to their becoming very close. They both search their hearts to.decide which way this relationship will go.
A wonderful read as always from Elizabeth Strout!