Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

I listened to My Name is Lucy Barton a few months ago, and it was an interesting book. Interesting in that I didn't love it, but I got invested in it, and I couldn't seem to stop thinking about it afterwards. It was very well-written and beautiful, and very hard to listen to at the same time because of how honest and real it was. Anyway, I decided to listen to the sequel, which is not really a sequel because it doesn't continue what you read about in the first one, but it is about many of the same people you hear about in the first one. Lucy Barton grew up in a tiny rural town in Illinois, and that is where we find our characters in Anything is Possible, which is a set of short stories all kind of related to each other because they all revolve around Lucy Barton. Each one is about a different person, and each of these people knows her or knew her and each of their stories touch on her in some way, and each of the stories are so much more revealing and eye-opening than you expect it to be. It seemed like each person had a lot of shame and big secrets, bigger than you'd expect from people who are just like the ones you know. Some of the stories were so shocking or sad in how they revealed themselves, and they all made me feel for the person, fictional though they may be. It made me think of the quote about how you should be kind because you never know what loads other people are carrying. I am glad to have listened to it and I think I will be thinking about it later afterwards, like I did with Lucy Barton.

I have meant to read more of Strout's work for years (specifically Olive Kitteridge, since it's the Pulitzer Prize winner) and I hope I can get around to it soon. It sounds like it's a lot like this one (at least in format, short stories) and I would be very interested in it.