Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely fine

Author: Gail Honeyman
Published: May 9th, 2017
Publisher: Viking, Pamela Dorman / Penguin Books
Rating: 5/5

Goodreads synopsis

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

The only way to survive is to open your heart.

My thoughts

I know I’m late to the Eleanor Oliphant party but where to begin?! I absolutely love this book. I first heard or I should say read about this book on Carissa’s blog the Rubbish Talk she has an amazing review of this book and after reading it I knew I had to pick it up and see for myself and I’m glad I did.

when I first started reading this book I was like OMG I’m going to hate this book! but I kept reading because after a couple of chapters I wanted to know more about this weird and awkward character. Eleanor is not afraid to speak her mind, she believes she’s the normal one and the rest of the people are just well, NOT normal. Eleanor is a loner, she loves being by herself she doesn’t see anything wrong with that, she is perfectly fine following her daily routine until she meets Raymond the new IT guy.

Raymond was such a great addition to Eleanor’s life, he really was my favorite character. Without giving any spoilers he did a lot for Eleanor, and I just loved every minute of him in the story.

Eleanor has a very sad and disturbing past, We know by her phone conversations that something horrible happened and that is what shaped her to be the way she is now but boy I didn’t see that reveal coming I was like omg, I was right there with you Eleanor!

This book had some funny moments, also, some weird moments like Eleanor stalking some famous musician and thinking it was ok to do what she did, but there are also some beautiful moments between Eleanor and some side characters that truly warmed my heart.

This book is definitely one of my favorite books this year. If you like A Man Called Ove which I also loved then you will love this book. They are different stories but both are books that pull on emotions.

Overall, this was a great story, loved the writing and everything about it. It does have some trigger warning like alcohol abuse, mental and physical abuse, talk of rape and depression and suicide.