“Olive’s private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as “big bursts” and “little bursts.” Big bursts are things like marriage or children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee’s, let’s say, or the waitress at Dunkin’ Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.”
After watching the HBO miniseries, which I loved a lot coz of the lead actors, family life, personal struggles – I already had high hopes from this book.
But the book surpassed all those expectations. It echoed a lot with how I feel about people, life, feelings. There are lot of lines in the book that echoes with my personal belief of life and loneliness. And all of these makes you feel something.
Olive in the book was a bit softer version than how the series represented her. Henry’s adaptation in series was as true as book.
Sometimes stuff just happens …
Covers very well everything life, ache, sympathy, love, child-parent relations.
Specially liked Olive’s belief on how life needs – “little bursts” along with “big bursts” . Not going to forget this analogy ever.
You couldn’t make yourself stop feeling a certain way, no matter what the other person did. You had to just wait. Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn’t go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.
Being a sucker for stories about ordinary people lives and their internal struggles, both old and young makes you relate with time that have passed and that will pass, along with regrets and pain and few bursts of joy it will bring.
Definitely recommended, and it’s a book that can be re-read once a year. It’s a 5/5 .
Black as My Coffee 