Somehow, we like cranky people who tell it like it is. Until we grow weary of them.</p><p>Somehow, Elizabeth Strout, in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel &ldquo;Olive Kitteridge&rdquo; created a cranky heroine readers haven&rsquo;t grown weary of at all.</p><p>Olive is a retired seventh-grade math teacher in small-town Maine. She elevates &ldquo;judgmental&rdquo; to new heights, setting everyone straight, including family, friends and foes.</p><p>But readers who can&rsquo;t wait to find out what she&rsquo;ll say or do next also are drawn to her sudden bouts of intense compassion and self-understanding.</p><p>In an interview last month when the novel was introduced as the FYI Book Club selection, Strout said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m most gratified when people say to me after reading the book, &lsquo;I see people differently now. I live in a small town. I understand life is more complicated.&rsquo; I would like my work to be used as a vehicle for forgiveness, for understanding that everybody&rsquo;s just human and most of us are trying to do the best we can.&rdquo;</p><p>The FYI Book Club met recently at the Waldo branch of the Kansas City Public Library to discuss &ldquo;Olive Kitteridge.&rdquo; The library&rsquo;s Kaite Mediatore Stover moderated the discussion.</p><p><strong>CHECK OUT OUR </strong></p><p><strong>BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION, C9</strong></p><p>It&rsquo;s not easy to find the perfect book for discussion, but Olive Kitteridge comes pretty close. It is short, only 270 pages. It is written in a style that makes it easy to pick up and put down. It has enough characters to keep readers interested and plenty of stories that hook readers and leave them asking, &ldquo;But what happened next?&rdquo;</p><p>Elizabeth Strout gathered many previously published short stories and pulled them into a novel that perfectly captures what it means to be Everywoman. All six readers who gathered to discuss the novel were fascinated with the irascible, perceptive, brutally honest and surprisingly sympathetic woman at the center of the book.</p><p>A few readers mentioned the great number of characters, saying that while they could keep them straight in each individual story, it was sometimes difficult to remember that a character had appeared in a previous story in a completely different light. They also noted the underlying sense of despair, and recurring themes of aging and death.</p><p>Lest potential readers think this is a depressing, dreary book, the attendees closed out the discussion by reading aloud their favorite jokes from Olive. The parrot that disdained blasphemy was the hands-down favorite, along with her doctor jokes. </p><p><hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> <strong><span class="infobox-head">Crystal Faris, Kansas City </span></strong><br /> I most enjoyed the unusual structure, with each chapter almost as a short story, sometimes with Olive as a character, sometimes only a brief mention of Olive.</p><p>The aspect of the book that stood out for me was the character development. Olive, of course, but also the others in the community, whom we come to know so well in so few pages.</p><p></div> <hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> <strong><span class="infobox-head">Anne Marley, Shawnee </span></strong><br /> I liked the book because Olive was a strong character. I liked the way she touched so many lives and often did not even realize how much of an effect she was having. </p><p>Olive&rsquo;s relationship with Henry, and the great detail with which it was described, was powerful for me. They seemed like such opposites, but they were really dependent on each other. Henry was more devoted to Olive than I would have imagined, considering how she treated him.</p><p></div> <hr class="infobox-hr-separator" /> <div class="infobox"> <strong><span class="infobox-head">Michelle Beattie, Overland Park </span></strong><br /> I enjoyed &ldquo;Olive Kitteridge&rdquo; very much. Our group commented that it is a book we could reread and find more: more depth, more connections between characters and events.