Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: I Understand the Hype

If you haven’t seen Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine around, then you might be living under a rock even more than I am. After hearing it recommended left and right, I finally took the time to read it. I’m glad I did.

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine

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.

Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

Why I enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine:

1. There is no other Eleanor Oliphant in fiction. She is completely her own character and as such, feels very, very real. Her quirks and mannerisms all feel authentic.
2. Heavy subjects are handled delicately. Thinking back on this book, I’m amazed that such challenging subjects could be handled so lightly. Honeyman isn’t flippant in the discussion of these thing, she just doesn’t weigh heavily the victimhood aspect of this. It makes for easier reading.
3. There is always comedy in tragedy. Bad things happen to good people, and that’s just the reality. Along the lines with the previous point, I enjoyed that Honeyman found a way to make humorous some of things that stemmed from horrible events. There’s a quote that floats around I can’t remember the specifics of, but it’s something to do with Polio (maybe it’s a Roosevelt quote?): I’ve got Polio no matter what, so I can choose to be happy or sad.  I might as well try to be happy.
4. It is a character-driven book. There is very little in the way of plot outside of character development, which is 100% my cup of tea. I want to see how the character grows and changes throughout the novel through the very small social events that help spurn her growth on. If you enjoy those stories, too, then you’ll love this.
5. It’s fast-paced. Right from the first page, Honeyman sets up a lot of questions that you are desperate to solve. It makes it easy to turn the pages, because you’re eager to figure out exactly what happened to Eleanor Oliphant to make her who she is.

Final rating: 4/5 – I really liked it.

Have you read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine? What did you think about it?

A.S. Thornton

A.S. Thornton has evolved from book blogger to author with a particular fondness for writing forbidden love in ancient deserts. When not writing, she’s caring for dogs and cats as a veterinarian. You’ll never find animals at the center of her writing, though, because those fictional worlds don’t have veterinarians and her literal brain can’t accept that the poor critters would be without parasite prevention. Thornton’s debut, DAUGHTER OF THE SALT KING is available wherever books are sold.