19 June 2018

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Humour
Literary Fiction
A 2018 Top Rated Read

By Gail Honeyman

Paperback 400 pages
Publisher HarperCollins (25th Jan 2018)
ASIN B01MAYG70K
ISBN-13 978-0008172145

"Funny, touching and unpredictable" Jojo Moyes



📕My Review

Eleanor Oliphant is a bit of an oddball. She doesn't fit in with her work colleagues and has no social life. She lives for the weekends, at home by herself, binging on pizza and vodka. Her life is one of routine and that's just how she likes it; she's completely fine.

When Eleanor and colleague Raymond witness an old man taken ill in front of them, they step in to help. This single act of kindness forces Eleanor to re-evaluate her own life. But the question is, will she be able to embrace change or should she continue being just 'completely fine'?

Oh my goodness, what an absolutely brilliant book! I can hardly believe this is the author's debut novel. It's uplifting, it's desperately sad, it's laugh-out-loud hilarious, it's enchanting. Eleanor Oliphant is an enigma in her own lifetime and I absolutely loved her! Definitely not my usual sort of read but after hearing such good things, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

What an amazing character Eleanor is. I experienced every possible emotion as I accompanied her on a journey of discovery and reinvention. I finished the book thinking it's OK to be eccentric and unconventional. It's OK to not follow the crowd. But what is NOT OK is to be without friendship or acceptance.

This is a wonderfully heart-warming book and I enjoyed every second.         

Barnsey's Books Rating 

📗The Blurb

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive – but not how to live.

Eleanor 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

Gail Honeyman’s debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, won the Costa First Novel Award 2017, and has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Desmond Elliott Prize.

As a work in progress, it was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. Since publication, translation rights have sold to over thirty territories worldwide, Reese Witherspoon has optioned it for film 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.

Gail lives in Glasgow.


1 comment:

Jennie Reads said...

This book has been sitting in my to be read pile and I keep passing it. Now I think I need to pull it out and read it. Thanks