The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Published 2026 · 61,875 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is The Things We Never Say to read?
The Things We Never Say scores 35 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 27 out of 100
- Strout is praised for economy of style, and the book centers on a high school teacher's everyday life. Expect plain, clear contemporary vocabulary, close to The Remains of the Day in clarity but less formal.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Reviewers highlight Strout's economical prose, which suggests short, direct sentences. The syntax stays simple, in the range of Beach Read and well below The Great Gatsby's rhythmic constructions.
- Abstraction: 40 out of 100
- Artie's question of how little we know one another is a philosophical idea, but it is carried through a teacher's concrete days, sailing and family. It sits near Atomic Habits, with ideas anchored in everyday scenes.
- Information density: 27 out of 100
- At roughly 62,000 words the novel is short and covers a brief, life-changing period in one man's life. The pace is comfortable, like Beach Read, with few threads to track.
- Narrative indirection: 50 out of 100
- Strout's fiction relies on what characters leave unsaid, and this novel centers on a secret Artie discovers and on the gaps between people. Readers infer much from restraint, though the story stays readable, closer to The Remains of the Day than to anything experimental.
- Symbolic density: 35 out of 100
- Artie's sailboat and his shoplifting may carry meaning, but the book reads as realist character study. Symbolism stays restrained, near The Remains of the Day.
- Ironic distance: 30 out of 100
- Reviews describe the book as sombre and compassionate toward every character. Irony stays low, with a sincere emotional register like It Ends with Us but with more subtle gaps between what Artie shows and feels.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- Strout's novels typically close quietly rather than neatly, and this one asks Artie to make peace with life's mysteries. Expect emotional settlement with questions about knowing others left open, a little above Beloved.
- Structural complexity: 28 out of 100
- The book follows a short period in Artie's life as a standalone novel of modest length. Its structure is linear and simple, like Beach Read's straightforward arrangement.
How The Things We Never Say is regarded
The Things We Never Say holds a literary regard score of 51 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.
Prizes
- Booker Prize 2026, shortlist
Where the story of The Things We Never Say takes place
- Massachusetts, USA, 2020s (2025), the main setting