Book info

• Title Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
• Author Gail Honeyman
• Year 2017
• Genre Contemporary

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive – but not how to live. Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life. Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than… fine?

Thoughts

I remember when this came out and swept the nation, and I specifically remember a couple of work colleagues discussing it - one loved it, one hated it. I should have been intrigued then but never quite got round to reading it until now. It’s an intriguing one, I think overall I liked it but I wouldn’t say it grabbed me as much as others who rave about it. I did quite like experiencing this character slowly opening up to the world and realising how society works, making friends and realising that she isn’t invisible, but something felt a tiny bit off with how the tragedy in the past was revealed. Worth a read though.

Rating: 3 / 5