I’ve gotta stop reading depressing books set in small towns on the seacoast of Maine. That pretty much sums up Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.

To be fair, I will say that I enjoyed Strout’s writing style- a novel set in stories, revolving around her main character, Olive Kitteridge. I think she is a talented writer and I enjoyed the format. However, the first story, Pharmacy, was my favorite and it went downhill from there. Henry, Olive’s husband was my favorite character by far-the only one I ever really cared about. He got sick, then died early on, and I never really cared what happened to Olive. This is the main problem I had with this book.

The book offers slices of small town life and the complexity of feelings that each character experiences, but couldn’t there have been a few characters that were a little bit happy? Too morose for my tastes.