I purchased this book on Amazon a couple of weeks ago and I recently had some time on my hands so I thought why not start the book? I finished it within two days.
This piece of non-fiction titled ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’ was written by Gail Honeyman. The main character is of course, Eleanor Oliphant, a woman in her thirties with an office job, no friends and the only family she has is her mother with whom she harbours a complicated relationship.
It’s refreshing to me that Eleanor isn’t a teenger, she’s a young woman in her thirties with a job and flat tackling issues of loneliness without being self deprecating. She plays into the quirky mannerisms that we sometimes don’t tend to like in other people and to tell you the truth, I did think she was a bit odd at first. However as the book progressed, I began to like her character and grew fond of her. She was an odd heroine however her quirks and jokes were something I related to such as wondering why unfriendly people work in customer service jobs.
More importantly, this book really did hit home with the theme of loneliness that was so apparent in the text. In my first year at University, this was a common feeling I felt as the loneliness set in when I didn’t have anyone to sit next to in large lectures when I was apart from my friends or when I’d be in my room in the evenings without anyone to talk to. I remember that one day I didn’t talk to anyone until about 4pm even though I went in for lectures that day. Loneliness is very common and very true and not everyone has a support line of family and friends to constantly talk to!
In all truth, I believe that Gail Honeyman did an incredible job with this book. I felt the ending was slightly more rushed for my taste but I won’t give away any spoilers! They tell you to never judge a book by it’s cover but I did with this on Amazon, the book looked good and I’m glad I bought it because I enjoyed it a lot so I suppose sometimes your gut instinct is right.
Have you read it? And what did you think about it?
Thanks for reading,
M x
mkajya 