I dislike short stories, and especially good ones. The whole point of a book is to get involved in something outside your own life, and a short story is just a tease. It pulls you into a world and then jerks you out, so you get all the sad parts of reading (it’s over) with very little of the good part (it’s not over yet and I can leave my actual life whenever I like).
So I was ready to dislike this ‘novel in short stories’ from the get-go. But I didn’t dislike it. At least not very much. I can see why it won the Pulitzer. It has a compelling central character in Olive, who is a seventh grade teacher who is not particularly likeable. (I suspect people in part enjoyed it as it is still unusual to have a woman be outright rude and difficult.)
It also had a number of interesting stories – fragile romances, discoveries after death, etc, – though it all got a bit MIDSOMER MURDERS when you had to ask yourself: what goes on in this small town they are all over each other like rabbits. That said, I hear this is true of small towns. There is nothing else to do so you might as well have sex. Let’s all move to small towns!