The Things We Never Say - Elizabeth Strout

I finished this in bed last night, having read the whole thing in a single day, and I've spent the time since trying to work out how I actually feel about it. I still haven't fully managed it. In my experience that's usually a good sign rather than a bad one. If I can't articulate my feelings about a book immediately, it normally means it's still gestating somewhere in the back of my head, and that it's going to stick around for a while. I'd never read any Elizabeth Strout before this, and what a way to be introduced to her. The prose is tender and quiet and restrained in a way that I found completely absorbing. She's remarkable at internality. I don't think I've ever felt more inside a character's head, inside their thoughts and their specific little emotional weather systems, than I did here. There are characters we only spend a couple of paragraphs with, seen entirely through someone else's eyes, and somehow you still feel like you know them properly. The title earns its place.…