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A review by edgwareviabank
Olive by Emma Gannon
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
I'm a 30-something woman who lives in London, and doesn't have children by choice. This book made me want to scream out loud in frustration at nearly every page.
Before I get to that, I want to say that the key themes weren't quite what I expected. I picked up the book because I was hoping for a broader narrative, where choices around family coexist with choices around career, money and other aspects of life. That's roughly what the blurb promised. In fact, the story is all about maternity. And that's totally fine, I'm only mentioning it so potential readers know what to expect. Even if the subject matter wasn't may cup of tea, it may be someone else's, right?
...WELL. Where do I start? I haven't read a novel this obnoxious in a long while.
The important messages about choices and societal pressures that come across here and there are diluted by a slew of irritating clichés. Olive is a cliché, possibly the biggest one: as a single 30-something woman with no family responsibilities, of course her personality revolves around downing bottles of wine alone in her flat and reminiscing about the fun she used to have when she was younger. Her and her friends' jobs and homes are clichés, all painted with a tinge of the "aspirational" you might find on an Instagram profile. And of course, since Olive is consumed by the fear of missing out in life because she doesn't want to start a family, everything she notices revolves around children, and everyone she meets starts conversations about maternity out of the blue. It's almost as if there was no other subject, literally no other subject the people in this book can talk about (nothing? Really? Not even the latest episode of Love Island?).
Look, I get it. I really get it. Maternity and motherhood are emotional topics. They're tough to talk about, and empathy and support between people whose opinions aren't perfectly aligned isn't always easy to come by. This is the one aspect the book does a decent job of: the parts that ring most true and emotional are the parts where characters realise the priorities they have every right to set for themselves are driving them apart from those they love. But also: if there was nothing else to carving our own path than the choice between having children and not having them, . There are layers and intersections this book doesn't make any effort to explore: it's very one-dimensional, and runs the risk of representing only a small portion of the readers who may get a lot more out of it if other factors that can affect the direction of a woman's life (money, professional opportunities, class - to name a few) played a bigger part.
I also found Olive's life quite sad. The root of her problems doesn't seem to be whether she wants kids or not. Throughout the majority of the book, her problem is she is clinging to an outdated idea of her life, and expects the world around her to be just as static. She can't seem to accept that her friends are humans who made choices, in the same way as she believes (rightly) that she's entitled to make her own. That's ironic: there's a line, around halfway, about how there are no bad decisions in life, only decisions we made with the information we had at the time. You'd think that might bring Olive to reflect, but no: on she goes, resenting her friends because their lives are out of step with hers, and painting everyone in mild cartoon-villainish terms (sometimes not so mild, see the fertility coach she goes to see with no plausible reason at all). I'm not letting the friends off the hook, either. Olive fears that they won't understand if she opens up to them, and it turns out she isn't wrong. The support these four women claim to offer each other is conditional. As another reviewer mentioned, it's easy to question whether they really like each other.
This is all before I even mention the lazy writing: jumps in tenses that don't make sense; memories that are meant to endear Olive to the reader and make her sound funny, and fall completely flat; a shaky timeline, where Olive signs up for an event happening "on Tuesday", and at least two weekends pass before the day actually comes. And lastly, more clichés. My generous explanation is that the author wanted to make the characters speak and think like Millennials, even when that meant reflecting biases our generation have internalised. Yes, many people my age define attractive women by how "thin" or "small" they are, but I have no desire to hear that from the main character I'm supposed to find relatable. Yes, the attitude that a perfect family or a scintillating career are the only things we have to define ourselves by is very much alive. Louder for people at the back: women without children don't owe anyone an aspirational life. Some people aspire to find contentment in a perfectly ordinary life: no compensating for whatever society thinks they should be, just being respected for their choices and figuring things out as they go. I've met many women like this, and suspect they're the majority, but they are never the people books talk about and normalise.
Before I get to that, I want to say that the key themes weren't quite what I expected. I picked up the book because I was hoping for a broader narrative, where choices around family coexist with choices around career, money and other aspects of life. That's roughly what the blurb promised. In fact, the story is all about maternity. And that's totally fine, I'm only mentioning it so potential readers know what to expect. Even if the subject matter wasn't may cup of tea, it may be someone else's, right?
...WELL. Where do I start? I haven't read a novel this obnoxious in a long while.
The important messages about choices and societal pressures that come across here and there are diluted by a slew of irritating clichés. Olive is a cliché, possibly the biggest one: as a single 30-something woman with no family responsibilities, of course her personality revolves around downing bottles of wine alone in her flat and reminiscing about the fun she used to have when she was younger. Her and her friends' jobs and homes are clichés, all painted with a tinge of the "aspirational" you might find on an Instagram profile. And of course, since Olive is consumed by the fear of missing out in life because she doesn't want to start a family, everything she notices revolves around children, and everyone she meets starts conversations about maternity out of the blue. It's almost as if there was no other subject, literally no other subject the people in this book can talk about (nothing? Really? Not even the latest episode of Love Island?).
Look, I get it. I really get it. Maternity and motherhood are emotional topics. They're tough to talk about, and empathy and support between people whose opinions aren't perfectly aligned isn't always easy to come by. This is the one aspect the book does a decent job of: the parts that ring most true and emotional are the parts where characters realise the priorities they have every right to set for themselves are driving them apart from those they love. But also: if there was nothing else to carving our own path than the choice between having children and not having them, . There are layers and intersections this book doesn't make any effort to explore: it's very one-dimensional, and runs the risk of representing only a small portion of the readers who may get a lot more out of it if other factors that can affect the direction of a woman's life (money, professional opportunities, class - to name a few) played a bigger part.
I also found Olive's life quite sad. The root of her problems doesn't seem to be whether she wants kids or not. Throughout the majority of the book, her problem is she is clinging to an outdated idea of her life, and expects the world around her to be just as static. She can't seem to accept that her friends are humans who made choices, in the same way as she believes (rightly) that she's entitled to make her own. That's ironic: there's a line, around halfway, about how there are no bad decisions in life, only decisions we made with the information we had at the time. You'd think that might bring Olive to reflect, but no: on she goes, resenting her friends because their lives are out of step with hers, and painting everyone in mild cartoon-villainish terms (sometimes not so mild, see the fertility coach she goes to see with no plausible reason at all). I'm not letting the friends off the hook, either. Olive fears that they won't understand if she opens up to them, and it turns out she isn't wrong. The support these four women claim to offer each other is conditional. As another reviewer mentioned, it's easy to question whether they really like each other.
This is all before I even mention the lazy writing: jumps in tenses that don't make sense; memories that are meant to endear Olive to the reader and make her sound funny, and fall completely flat; a shaky timeline, where Olive signs up for an event happening "on Tuesday", and at least two weekends pass before the day actually comes. And lastly, more clichés. My generous explanation is that the author wanted to make the characters speak and think like Millennials, even when that meant reflecting biases our generation have internalised. Yes, many people my age define attractive women by how "thin" or "small" they are, but I have no desire to hear that from the main character I'm supposed to find relatable. Yes, the attitude that a perfect family or a scintillating career are the only things we have to define ourselves by is very much alive. Louder for people at the back: women without children don't owe anyone an aspirational life. Some people aspire to find contentment in a perfectly ordinary life: no compensating for whatever society thinks they should be, just being respected for their choices and figuring things out as they go. I've met many women like this, and suspect they're the majority, but they are never the people books talk about and normalise.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infertility