Anything Is Possible

ByElizabeth Strout

Release Date: 2017-04-25
Genre: Family Fiction & Literature

Score: 4

From 595 Ratings

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An unforgettable cast of small-town characters copes with love and loss in this “compulsively readable” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton

“This book, this writer, are magnificent.”—Ann Patchett

WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, People, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, The Seattle Times, Esquire, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly

In Anything Is Possible, Elizabeth Strout explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. A grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother’s happiness in a foreign country. And Lucy Barton returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence.

Reverberating with the deep bonds of family, and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible “confirms Strout as one of our most grace-filled, and graceful, writers” (The Boston Globe).

Reviews

Rambling
3
By Cosmology fan
Difficult to follow because story changed, apparently unrelatedly. Each new chapter seemed unrelated to the previous. The final chapter was good, very interesting and unexpected.
Deep characters
5
By gettingmadfindingname
Elizabeth Strout has an amazing talent of storytelling and dives deeper into a character than I have ever read. I don’t know how she is able to imagine the complexity of these characters, but I’m grateful for her talent. She finds beauty in the most difficult situations and really makes you find love for every single name she puts on her pages. I can’t wait to keep reading!
Difficult
2
By lla96
I read her “Olive” books first and loved them. I then read “ I am Lucy Barton” and now this follow-up. I found them both to be exhausting. The continuous sentence breaks and thoughts that become so difficult to keep straight was manic. The upside is that I like the stories and the characters.
Anything is Possible
5
By Ristikay
I love that each chapter of this book reads like a short story; and each story is a treasure.
Confusing
2
By lit girl k
Confusing, rambling, no point to the story to tie the characters together.
Wonderful
5
By WriterInVermont
I loved this book. Growing up in small-town America, I strongly identified with Strout’s portrayal of the quiet repression’s, undercurrents, and struggles of people in “forgotten” places. The series of vignettes implies more than it says, and strikes an excellent balance of humour, hope, and frustrated yearning. By far the best book I read this last year.
What was this book even about?
2
By Patti29624
I usually don’t leave low ratings on books I read, because I am picky about what I do read and when I can’t get into a book then I usually just stop reading it, but I kept reading this one thinking that the story line would eventually pick up but it never did, I admit that I have not read I am Lucy Barton, but was promised that this could be read as a stand alone book, so it could be because I didn’t read the first book that was linked to this one but I had a hard time getting into this whole story, there were just to many characters to try and keep everything straight, I didn’t really understand the point in most of the short story endings, they just all seemed to drop off and not really be finished, I never could figure out what the actual meaning of this book was about, to me it just told random stories about people who were linked together in one way or another and I really had to make myself finish the book, if you like the idea of reading a bunch of stories with a bunch of different characters then this is the book for you, however if you prefer a book to focus on one or two characters and have a real story plot then don’t even attempt to read this one.
Anything is Possible
5
By Lass lib
Great book
Scattered
3
By D HB
Trying to stay this story. Halfway in still not enjoying.
Literature
5
By pjpuppy
There are 3 kinds:
Oh.
Oh my.
And
Oh my God.

This latest book by Elizabeth Strout is oh my God. I am starting at the beginning, again. Sentences laid like a perfect brick wall. Thank you. Thank you. You put me inside all these lives.