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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine


jasper

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Gail Honeyman's first novel is excellent. Indeed, it is completely fine. The first-person narrator is a 30 year old, highly-intelligent woman who works at a menial office job and drinks two bottles of vodka every weekend. Facially-scarred in a childhood accident, she is socially inept and has little human contact apart from her viciously evil Mummy. There are moments of high comedy engendered by her stilted, pedantic attempts to speak socially and her hopeless crush on an obscure rock singer. The best read of the last two years for me. I hope Duncan Ewart likes it. I value his opinion.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for recommending this book, @jasper. If I'm being honest, if you hadn't  I would have dismissed this novel as mere "chick-lit" and ignored it and that would have been my loss- it is a work darker and much deeper than anything from that genre. I was interested to see Janice Galloway's name in the list of acknowledgements, as it was her own meditation on female loneliness and mental health, "The Trick Is To Keep Breathing", that immediately sprung to mind as I was reading "Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine". Of course, she is anything but fine at times- a physically and psychologically scarred young woman whose traumatic past haunts her but you hope that as the novel ends, she will be completely fine. I think she will be. I managed to work out the "twist" concerning her conversations with Mummy about halfway through. I liked her relationship with Raymond and I agree that her attempts to navigate through various social situations were hilarious. I've found myself missing Eleanor's voice now I've finished reading.  

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I would agree with most of the previous comments, I found myself laughing out loud at some of Eleanor's naivety in social situations and really identified with her thoughts on some of her colleagues at work. At one point I thought it was heading to a much darker place than it did and that was the only part I found unrealistic. Could the physical and mental damage she sustained be turned around in such a short period even with new friendships and professional help ? Enjoyable read and a promising first novel from Gail Honeyman. I borrowed the book from North Ayrshire Libraries but had to read it on my tablet since they don't do downloads to Kindle devices.

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