Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine - G. Honeyman

“If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”

One of the best novels read in 2017 and, generally, in a long time. An absolute MUST read which I highly recommend!

Eleanor is a very peculiar 30 years old woman, very set in her habits, she works in the accounts department of a graphic company, she eats M&S sandwiches for lunch, pasta with pesto in the evenings. On Friday evenings she has Tesco pizza margherita and she drinks wine, while at weekend she enjoys a couple of bottle of vodka. She has a very precise opinion on how people should behave, their manners, their attire. She is very composed and she doesn't indulge in chit chat.
She reads as an old strange lady to begin with, but while the novel evolves, you get snapshots of her very hard and difficult childhood and the reasons why she behaves like she does.
And then she meets a friend and her world starts to change.

It is such a beautiful written novel, and the plot is so quirky, profound, heartbreaking at points, extremely funny in others. Eleanor is such a complex character and her different sides come slowly out throughout the book. She made me laugh, she comes out with such straightforward opinions and hilarious comments. A coming to age kind of novel, even if the age is 30s in this case.

A brilliant book, the writing style is captivating and rich, the characters are extremely interesting and very multidimensional and the plot is unique. Loved it!

“I wasn't good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I'd worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don't find very funny, or do things they don't particularly want to, with people whose company they don't particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I'd fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.”

Overall rating: 10      Plot: 10     Writing style: 10      Cover:  9

Title: Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine

Author: Gail Honeyman
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 400
Publication year: 2017

Plot:

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive – but not how to liveEleanor 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?

The Author:

While Gail Honeyman was writing her debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, it was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize as a work in progress. It has subsequently sold to almost thirty territories worldwide, and it was chosen as one of the Observer’s Debuts of the Year for 2017. Gail was also awarded the Scottish Book Trust’s Next Chapter Award in 2014, and has been longlisted for BBC Radio 4’s Opening Lines and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. She lives in Glasgow.