Eleanor is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman -Book Review

Hello lovelies!

I am back with a review which took me a month to write because I needed to gather the broken pieces of my heart. (Yes, I’m a drama queen; what about it?)

Title: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely fine

Author: Gail Honeyman

Synopsis: Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she’ll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all. (Goodreads)

Rating: 5 heartbreaking stars.

Review

I had only read the synopsis so I thought I had an idea on what the book was about. How I was wrong! It was not what I expected at all. This book touched me in places I didn’t know could be reached. There are different movements in the book. The beginning is a bit slow-paced but that is only to set the mood and get us to grasp Eleanor’s personality. Eleanor Oliphant cannot be described in a few words and this review will not do her justice. You have to read her story to find out who she is and where she comes from. Eleanor has had a hard life and childhood, and we, readers, are fortunate enough to see her opening up to the world, see her being cherished, loved, appreciated and cared for, for the first time in her life. This book reminded me of all the ugly and beautiful things in the world. The kind and caring people like Sammy and Raymond as well as the awful and cruel beings like Eleanor’s mother or abusive ex-boyfriend. This is a much-needed and beautiful tale about pain, friendship, family and love. It contained funny parts with acted as comic relief for some very hard parts that made me cry more times than I would like to admit.

I read this as an audiobook which allowed me to appreciate the impeccable and beautiful writing style of Gail Honeyman. And to think that this is a debut novel for Honeyman! I would like to thank the author for sharing her craft with us and for telling Eleanor’s story.

I should warn that the book contains many sensitive topics (if not all of them) and some parts are very difficult to read at times.

Did you read this book? What did you think? Let’s chat in the comments! 🙂

Karla xx