2022: Again, I think my mother would like this book more than I did.

First off, Jack continues to be the worst and I'm honestly surprised that Olive stuck around with him for as long as she does. He's still homophobic, and he makes several distasteful comments about his Somali neighbors. Strout does a good job of having Olive shut him down immediately, which is great, but her marriage is a tacit agreement that he's "not that bad". I also wouldn't mind it if he was a born and raised Mainer and this was a decent representation of people who live here. But he literally was a Harvard professor! Don't give me this shit!

There's plenty of Maine humor here (including lines such as "Crosby, Maine is about as far away from Cambridge, Massachusetts as you can get" hahaha). I was listening to this book talk about Reid State Park while I was driving by its exit, which is always fun to experience.

Ultimately, Olive spends a lot of time in this book contemplating her own mortality. She struggles with the loneliness that ensues when you lose a partner and friends, and she has to move into an assisted living home. This is just not where I am in my life right now, and I wasn't feeling particularly connected to Olive's woes. I'll save this one to revisit (much) later in life.