Will I love Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine?

Humor wielded with ill intention is a cruel weapon. Yet in thoughtful and caring hands, laughter is such a balm.

This is a hard story, yet I’m not sure I can count how often I laughed out loud while reading—not at someone’s expense but at Gail Honeyman’s ability to adeptly portray so many of the odd moments that come along with being a human on this earth.

Most importantly, this story beautifully illustrates how one person with more emotional baggage than anyone should have to carry is able to walk herself into a peaceful life so different than the one… show more.

Any book with the word 'fine' in its title needs to feature someone who is very much not.

Eleanor's voice is so specific, so precise, that I felt close to her long before I understood the weight of what she was carrying around. I'm always drawn to characters who build survival systems out of avoidance.

The story made me laugh, but left me with a quiet ache that only very honest comic fiction can manage.

I found myself caring for the main character. She's unique, and she made me laugh and cry. Her friend was wonderful as well.

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.