Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

I’ve never read a book as quickly as I read this one. Our eponymous lead character is quirky and odd, but the story is written with so much empathy, depth, and humor that I was rooting for her from the start.

I loved how the relationship between Eleanor and Raymond plays out and avoids the predictable ‘boy meets girl’ ending. It doesn’t surprise me that the book is ‘in development’ as a movie, as the story plays out like a film when you read it. Definitely read this one first before you see the film! (It probably won’t take long… show more.

Gail Honeywell gave me a gift when she wrote the character of Elinore Oliphant. I felt so sorry for her one minute, and the next, I could relate to her crazy life and insecurities. I felt like I wanted to protect her, and I also wanted to shake her and tell her to stop being so weird. I wanted to give her a big hug, and I wanted to tell her to snap out of it.

Honeyman provided a magical experience for me that all the best authors are able to do. It’s like she is able to point at… show more.

The brilliant yet troubled character of Eleanor both touched and inspired me.

I admired her professionalism as a finance clerk—organized, thorough, reliable, and super competent. But I cringed at her disastrous personal life of total isolation, at her lack of the most basic social skills, and at the way she drank herself to oblivion to get through the lonely nights.

But Eleanor’s idiosyncratic, sometimes hilarious outlook on the world made me root for her from the get-go, and as she gradually learned the importance of human connection and how it could help her conquer her demons, I was with her… show more.

Eleanor is completely relatable to me on my worst days. She’s neurotic and judgmental and favors predictability.

Reading this made me feel a little less bad about myself when all I do is lie on the couch and read and eat cookies for dinner. It also helped me to see that sometimes all you need is one person to love you for everything to change.

I stumbled upon this quirky book at a secondhand book fair. After reading it, I understood how it managed to hold a solid spot on the bestseller list for quite some time. 

Now in her mid-30s, Eleanor, who’s lived a sheltered life, is refreshingly oblivious to social media. Her astute observations, once she jumps online, mainly to stalk a pop star, yes, it sounds crazy, and it kind of is, are hilarious. She dissects popular trends and, through witty inner dialogue, exposes just how absurd that world has become by its blind adherence to popular, at times, ridiculous trends. Despite… show more.

This book has it all: wonderful characters, a mystery that slowly unravels, and a plot that leaves you unable to stop reading. Eleanor was severely traumatized as a child, and slowly, we learn the extent of the trauma. Yet she is upbeat and remarkably resilient.

She clumsily embraces the help of caring people and allows them to teach her how to interact with her world. I am drawn to people who have experienced trauma, and I am fascinated by how they cope and how they are rescued by relative strangers.

The sessions with her therapist are powerful and moving. How… show more.

This is a beautifully disturbing story.

It’s beautiful in the sharpness of Gail Honeyman’s observations of Eleanor Oliphant’s eccentric behavior, which usually gets dismissed as plain weird but, in fact, masks a deep sadness and heart-breaking loneliness.

But there is no maudlin or gooey self-pitying in Gail’s writing, just well-crafted and sometimes hilarious turns of phrase. The scene where the guy in the coffee shop asked for her name to put on the coffee cup made me splutter out loud. 

It’s disturbing how Gail Honeyman suddenly reminds us of the Eleanor Oliphants we’ve met in our own lives and only… show more.

This novel is a sometimes funny and sometimes grim depiction of what it is like to be extremely lonely, and what it takes to move from that loneliness into friendship.

It starts out as something pretty simple and goofy—a socially challenged young woman develops a crush on a singer in a local band and tries to pursue him, but that’s just a jumping-off point for Honeyman to show Eleanor Oliphant in all her prickly, strange, smart, hurting glory.

This book is a quick-witted slow burn and it takes a while for Eleanor to finally let her defenses down and allow… show more.

I love this book for all the unexpected elements it provides—eccentric Eleanor and the life-saving friendship which blooms with her unkempt coworker, the off-beat humor in how she conducts herself in seemingly ordinary situations, and of course, the twist I never saw coming!

It’s a page-turning must-read for those craving an unpredictable, emotional adventure which covers everything from loneliness, isolation, anxiety, and healing from traumatic events to honest friendship and self-discovery. It’s truly an unforgettable story I find myself reaching into my bookshelf for, time and time again!

I wanted to read a book about a person that others consider odd or weird because I’ve known some of these people too. There are some I reached out to and some I wish I had. I feel guilty for those I didn’t try to befriend.

Eleanor is quirky for sure. Her life is so routine it’s disturbing and sadly empty. She works all week, wears the same clothes every day, eats the same lunch, then on weekends she stays mostly in her apartment heating up pizza and drinking vodka. I wasn’t sure if she was just profoundly lonely like… show more.