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.
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
2018
by Penguin Books
(first published May 9th 2017)
Genre: Fiction
Kristine's Thoughts:
I'm relatively new to audio books but I have to say that this may just be the best one I have listened to so far. The story was unique and interesting and the narrator was absolutely fabulous in telling it. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was an amazing debut novel for Gail Honeyman which leaves me quite excited for her future projects.
Eleanor was different than most people with a past that she couldn't completely remember. People and coworkers kept their distance and so did she. Her social skills were lacking and she had a very rigid routine that involved vodka on the weekends to make the long days pass. When Eleanor and the IT guy from her work helped an older man in crisis, her life started moving off of her neatly organised track.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was both comical and sad at the same time. There were many laugh out loud moments but it was surrounded by a deeper loneliness that pulled at my heart strings. It got quite serious at one point as well. The part where she said she couldn't remember a time when she was touched by someone who wasn't paid really stayed with me. I work in a field where the people that I support are in the same situation. It speaks to the loneliness of many people and really makes you think.
This novel was truly unique and engaging and definitely one of my favourites of the year. I won't forget it any time soon and would highly recommend it!
This book is EVERYWHERE this year. I need to get myself a copy. I love books that are both funny and sad. Great review!
ReplyDeleteAj @ Read All The Things!
Thank you! I picked it because it was the 2017 Goodreads Fiction runner up (already listened to the winner)and I'm really glad I did. Let me know what you think. :)
ReplyDelete