Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (A Review by Catherine Mongrain)
Rating: 4.5/5
It’s no wonder this title was the most talked about book of the 2015 Frankfurt Book Fair. Gail Honeyman’s first offering, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is a charming and heart-warming novel. It introduces us to Ms Eleanor Oliphant; at nearly 30 years old she is very content in her self-contained world of going to work Monday-Friday and spending the entire weekends with bottles of vodka as her only friends. She doesn’t have a social life, or friends and doesn’t feel she needs anything more. Then life throws her a curveball when she lays eyes on a smoldering rock band singer who she deems the love of her life.
As the book unfolds, the author does a wonderful job of bringing you into Eleanor’s life and her ever expanding horizons. Stepping into the mind, and backstory of Eleanor, how she became who she is and how she moves forward is extremely well done. The book features very few characters but does a great job at developing Eleanor as the novel unfolds. I quickly fell in love with Eleanor and her quirky ways and was truly sad to let her go at the end of the novel. It was an emotionally charged book, with a hint of suspense and some great laugh out loud moments brought on by Eleanor’s peculiar understanding of the world.
This would make a great book club read as it was a wonderful story with lots of deeper themes to discuss, especially surrounding loneliness, depression and how it’s viewed and felt in today’s society.
Review by Catherine Mongrain