Firstly, I am late to the party.  Everyone is reading or has read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.  Everyone.  I have had this recommended to me so many times, and I still didn't manage to pick it up until now.  It's won awards, and it has still take me this long to read it.  I can only apologise.

Secondly, I am giving this novel 5 stars.  That's right, this is my second 5 star review in a matter of weeks.  I don't know what is happening! I feel it is important that you know this is a 5 star novel from the outset, rather than waiting until the end of this review to find out!

So, I loved this book. Eleanor is a beautifully crafted, complicated character who really gets inside your head and stays with you. Her matter of fact statements, the shocking way she'll sometimes impart information makes you feel for her all the more. Despite her tough, somewhat lonely life, she has come through it all (albeit with a quite serious drinking problem). You can't help but want her to connect with other people to build the life you know she deserves.

I am often put off reading award winning books - I know this is a little controversial - because critics (in my opinion) do not always represent the wider audience. For example, how many Best Picture Oscar winning films do you actually like? But I am happy to confirm that this novel thoroughly deserved to win its awards. It is an amazing debut from Gail Honeyman, and I look forward to seeing what else she brings us. I also cannot wait to see what Reese Witherspoon does with the book now that she owns the films rights - exciting times ahead!

So, to round up - if you haven't already read this book, go out and get yourself a copy.  You will not regret it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman and Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny. I didn't read them with any pre-conceived ideas - in fact both were from NetGalley and I knew very little about them and it’s possibly only a similarity of my own thinking, but they seem like a match to me.

Eleanor Oliphant is a massive success; a debut novel that started a bidding war and won The Costa First Novel prize. Widely acclaimed and apparently a prime example of feel good “Up Lit” I feel entirely at odds with popular opinion as I loathed it.

Eleanor is a lonely thirty-something who works in an office and adheres to a strict routine she feels safe with. There is unspecified trauma in her background. She’s an oddball, a figure of ridicule at work, out of step with her colleagues and apparently all of modern society. She’s a cartoon character: LOL she's so weird cos she gets things wrong! Don't worry though, she's going to undergo an ugly duckling to swan transformation via a wax, a haircut, a make-over and some new clothes. The characterisation throughout is wafer thin and the plotting seemed incredibly obvious. Eleanor develops a crush on a lead singer in a band at the same time as meeting Raymond, a man seemingly not at all put off by the things that every other person in the book are. Everything is telegraphed well ahead. The voice adopted is a one note bright, play it for laughs (never mind the trauma) voice.

The idea of this being a mood-lifting “up” style of novel only works if we can ignore rape, murder, fire, crushing loneliness and abuse. The representation of trauma and (possibly) additional needs is woeful.

Standard Deviation, another debut novel, is about Graham, whose inner voice we are privy to, his younger wife, Audra, and their son Matthew. Matthew is an 11 year old with Aspergers and is described in a wonderfully relatable way and is genuinely funny. There’s a warmth that comes through in this novel, and an authenticity that is lacking in Eleanor Oliphant.
“The terrible twos seemed to have a magical stretching ability when it came to Matthew. They went on for years. Eruptions over milk served in anything other than the Buzz Lightyear soppy cup, over music that was too “tinkly”, over carpet that was too scratchy, over people who stood too close, over the smell of sunblock, the prospect of butter on biscuits, the sight of cheetahs in an animal documentary. The littlest thing could set Matthew off, and there seemed to be no way of calling him back from the land of the tantrum - in an instant, he would be flat on the floor, back arched, legs rigid, mouth a wide open circle of angry scream. They would do anything to prevent it. Graham could remember scorch-taping the last banana in the fruit bowl back into a banana peel so Matthew could eat it monkey-style. Graham’s hands had been shaking with desperation.”

Audra is an excellent (over-loud, over-chatty gossipy) character who is a great foil to Graham (and his ex wife who seems the opposite of her) and is the stand-out star of the book. I enjoyed this novel far more than I expected to and really am quite puzzled why it doesn't seem to have garnered more praise. Especially considering how feted that blooming Oliphant book is.

I did not expect to love this book as much as I did. It was heartwarming and full of life in many ways. I was completely engrossed in Eleanor's journey and didn't realise how invested I was until I had tears pricking my eyes. The book follows the highs and lows of Eleanor's life and her road to recovery. I loved reading about Eleanor's relationship with the different people in her life, and the change in dynamics when she is speaking to certain characters.

Even if you think this book isn't the type you'd enjoy, I honestly say, give it a chance! You will be pleasantly surprised.

Eleanor leads a reserved, very proper, and strict life. There are hints from the start that she has had a difficult past and that she is continuing to struggle with this: she has a strange relationship with her mother, drinks a lot of vodka, and has a social worker who visits her at home and ask questions about what she remembers of her past. She gradually becomes friendly with Raymond, a man from work, who brings her out of her comfort zone, leading to her facing up to her astonishing past. At times the writing was a bit flowery for my tastes, but it suited Eleanor's voice perfectly. The subtle references to her past throughout keep you turning the pages wanting more, and the twist is exquisite. This was a brilliant read.

Unfortunately, I am no longer interested in reviewing this book on my blog. Thank you for this opportunity.

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine, or is she? She has her routine and her vodka but is that enough.? Things are about to change.

Beautifully poignant story, well written, and addictive. Eleanor oliphant is a haunting character you won't forget.

In this tale, which seems like the female and slightly less funny but more sinister version of The Rosie Project, Eleanor Oliphant is 'weird' and fine with being alone and with her routine until she decides she's in love and is going to do something about it.

The narrative proceeds then to follow someone pursuing this path that would be 'normal' for most of the population but through the eyes of someone who doesn't fit into the social spectrum deemed normal by the media and most institutions in society.

It's a typical ploy used to exploit 'other' points of view so that we can have a laugh at them. She complains about the lack of other people's manners while behaving in a way that the reader would immediately know is not socially polite. We are invited to look down and laugh at her through her very own narrative, in a sense.

By the end of chapter two I already disliked the book. Half-way through story I could no longer stand the exploitation and mockery of someone who the author was quite clearly suggesting had been abused and traumatised. There are horrible and sickening allusions and I couldn't take it.

I read a review of the book on Shona Craven's site and I agree with the following:

The biggest problem with the book as a work of literature is that there is barely a scene in it that rings true. As a character, Eleanor is utterly implausible, a crude caricature. Does she have autistic spectrum disorder? Post-traumatic stress disorder? Some kind of dissociative disorder? It’s barely worth speculating, as she is nothing but a figment of the author’s imagination. No-one like her exists in the real world. And as such, the book has nothing whatsoever of value to say.

But the reason it matters is that this is a book about a character who is part of one of the most marginalised and misunderstood populations in society – care-experienced young people. She is a young woman who has experienced childhood trauma, and moved around foster placements, and struggled to form relationships.

The average person doesn’t know a great deal about the care system. Neither, is seems, does Gail Honeyman, who has nonetheless written a novel about a care-experienced character who at the outset has no friends, no social skills and a ludicrously limited understanding of the world she has inhabited for 30 years. The novel is set in contemporary Glasgow, yet the author seems to have no interest in getting very basic facts right. She perpetuates a number of harmful myths about social services, including that workers conceal vital information from foster carers, that young people are not included in decision-making about their lives, and that trauma-experienced social work clients (whether adults or children) receive no meaningful support whatsoever.

This is an irresponsible book that 'others' certain behaviours for effect. It does feel harmful and it's a sad state of affairs that people think they can understand others' trauma by reading through the lens of mockery.

When I first started reading this book, my first thought was "really, who does that now, such an 80's throw back story", but this was done in such a cunning way that i was totally drawn in and it formed part of the story. By the end of the book, I was totally in awe. Great book. Good story. Now the title makes sense.

A wonderful book that I regret taking so long to read. The hype is well deserved and really is an incredible read.

A well written book though the beginning is very slow. Since reading it, the book has become a hit so a lot of people have enjoyed it. A good book, but not enough action for me.

What’s it About? Am I the last person in the world to read this? This is Eleanor Oliphant’s story – her social skills are somewhat lacking, she avoids social interactions and spends the time she’s not at her 9-5 office job where her colleagues think she’s weird, drinking vodka and eating pizza and she is fine with that, until quite by accident she runs into a completely undesirable man from her office in the street and helping save an old man who’s fallen on the pavement and starts to realise what it means to have friends.

What I liked Feelings. I has them. This book is really realy good. It’s been getting all the hype; it deserves it. I was not ready for this book, and I was not fine after finishing it because OH MY, MY HEART. I was not warned and I was not ready. This book is profound and it is beautiful and it is so worth a read. It’s quite extraordinary, really.

What I liked Less the supporting cast. Eleanor was fabulous, Raymond pretty good…everyone else though kind of fell by the wayside and that made me sad.

This is a truly wonderful book! I have to admit, at first I was fairly sceptical at the prospect of yet another socially-awkward character, but very soon Eleanor won me over completely.
As we follow Eleanor through her daily routine, it soon becomes apparent that her inability to relate to others in a social context is the result of emotional and psychological abuse as a child. This becomes particularly clear during Eleanor's weekly calls to "Mummy", which completely chilled me to the bone.

Everything in Eleanor's carefully planned life, however, is about to change as two extraordinary things happen: first, she falls in love with a musician while attending a concert; second, she meets Raymond, the bumbling new IT guy from her office, and Sammy, an elderly gentleman whom she and Raymond save after he falls on a sidewalk. Suddenly forced to amend her routine and looking to obtain a complete makeover to win over her man, Eleanor starts to realise that she can be loved and she deserves more than she had so far. But in order to do so, she will need to confront secrets she buried so deep, even she doesn't remember the truth anymore - and she'll need to do it before their weight crushes her. As she embarks on this journey of discovery of herself and the world around her, Eleanor has to come to terms with a past that is far too painful - and she has to accept that she doesn't have to do it alone.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is a tiny jewel of a book. At times funny (Eleanor's first wax had me doubled over), at times heartbreaking, always tender, this book broke my heart and put it back together several times. I loved watching the world through Eleanor's eyes, and I felt like cheering her on at every small step she took towards regaining control over her own life. This is one character I am certain will stay with me for a really long time. I enjoyed the writing style very much, and found more than once that I did not want to stop reading. I could hardly believe this was the author's debut! I'll definitely look out for more of her books.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is having its moment and it deserves it. I didn't want to stop reading this for a minute and I'm going to admit I cried, several times. Eleanor is not the most lovable character but her shallows hide really deep depths of trauma and her recovery is spellbinding. Yet this is not a downer of a book, Honeyman inserts dark humor and also light hope in here.

Loved this book. Really liked the main character. An easy read that made me not want to put the book down.

I had incredibly conflicted feelings while reading “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine”. It focuses on loneliness – a subject I come back to continuously on my blog which is, in part, a self-conscious exploration of that state. The beginning of this novel is prefaced by a quotation form “The Lonely City” by Olivia Laing, one of my favourite books from 2016 – so my expectations were incredibly high. Author Gail Honeyman has spoken about how her initial inspiration for the novel came from reading about an ordinary young adult who had an extremely solitary existence bouncing between work and home with no socializing in between. This is protagonist Eleanor’s routine life. She has a frosty relationship with her colleagues and no one to speak to outside of the office except for weekly phone calls with her belligerent and cruel mother. But, after watching a handsome singer at a gig, she’s inspired to change and camouflage herself “as a human woman” in order to make him fall for her. As she gradually emerges from her hermetic shell she’s forced to confront a painful past and all the emotions she’s suppressed for so long.

Although I’m really invested in the central subject and some sections were very moving, this novel ultimately didn’t come together for me because I couldn’t believe in Eleanor’s character. Even though she has no social contact and is a creature of habit, it doesn’t make sense to me that she’s entirely ignorant about many pop cultural references and aspects of society. It’s noted in the story how she’s someone who regularly reads the newspaper, listens to the radio and watches television, but she’s never heard of McDonalds, SpongeBob SquarePants or the dance YMCA. She’s completely at a loss as to how to conduct a transaction when ordering a takeaway pizza or buying a computer and when a beautician giving her a makeover asks if she’d like a smoky eye she replies she doesn’t like anything to do with smoking. Even for someone who lives in such an isolated way, it feels like she could glean a lot of this information and get an idea of how people interact from the media she consumes. But many times it feels like she’s literally an alien.

You could argue that she has some sort of developmental disability or personality disorder based on trauma or years spent in intense isolation. Or it could be she’s just really bad at social situation. She expresses at one point how she finds people unfathomable: “I often find that I don’t understand why they do and say things.” However, this doesn’t seem compatible with the fact that she’s highly intelligent and could deduce many things about how social situations work. Also, later on, she expresses how “by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I’d fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.” So it’s not that she doesn’t understand social norms, but chooses to reject them. This seems inconsistent with her character’s actions and reactions throughout the novel where she literally doesn’t understand what people mean or why they act the way they do.

Also, the tone of the novel felt quite uneven where I wasn’t sure if the author or Eleanor were being intentionally funny or not. At a funeral she considers the various ways that a corpse can be disposed of and she thinks how when she dies she’d like to be fed to zoo animals. She plans to write to the WWF to find out if this would be possible. It felt very difficult to know if instances like this were supposed to be funny or not. Also, she expresses how much she loves reading and has a particular fondness for Jane Eyre, but later she remarks how she ends up reading dull manuals because she’s so entirely baffled as to how to find literature she’d like more and states “There are so many books in the world – how do you tell them all apart?” But someone who is as smart as she is and went to university surely would be able to guess that if she likes Jane Eyre so much she’d probably like to try reading some other classic fiction.

On the positive side, there were some sections I found effective. In particular, I found Eleanor’s relationship with money really powerful. She’s highly conscious of spending much money and is scrupulous about contributing anything to social occasions such as buying people drinks. She describes how “if I were to run out of funds, find myself indebted, there is no one, not a single soul, on whom I could call to bail me out. I’d be destitute.” So it’d make sense that she’d be particularly anxious about safeguarding her personal finances. I also appreciated the gentle way the author handles the way people react to Eleanor’s odd behaviour where some sneer/mock her and others approach her with more sensitivity. Her journey towards building somewhat stable friendships and accepting herself was well plotted. But Eleanor as a character didn’t feel wholly convincing to me. I also think the story would have been stronger if Eleanor’s hidden history wasn’t so melodramatic. It feels like it would have been more effective and relatable if she just happened to be an awkward introvert.

It’s interesting reading this novel now that it’s been out almost a year and gained some supporters as well as strong detractors. It was the winner in the debut fiction category of the Costa Awards and has been nominated for numerous other awards such as the Women’s Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize. So it’s caused this book to come under a lot more scrutiny than a debut novel would usually get. I don’t think opinions could ever become as sharply divided as they were for the novel “A Little Life”, but this novel seems to be coming close.

I had heard such a lot about 'Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine,' so much so that I was desperate to read it! I don't really know what I expected it to be; exciting, page turning? Who knew!
When I read the first few pages I must confess that I began to wonder what all the fuss was about. The main character, Eleanor, didn't appear to have any remotely likeable characteristics; her life is bland and her character is bland - in the beginning.
This was definitely a slow burner. You had to appreciate quite how bland Eleanor's life was, and then gradually, gradually it began to build. By part two, 'Bad Days,' I was hooked; by 'Part Three,' I had certainly reached that page-turning threshold.
Most importantly, for me, was the fact that long after the book was finished, it continued to make an impression. I remembered Eleanor, her story and her transformation long after the last page was turned.
I give this book four stars.

This is a book that will have you reading all day and night!! And you will laugh and cry in equal measure. The main character Eleanor gets under your skin and you just want her to be happy. Lots of issues dealt with around mental health and it has a strong message. Definitely read this, it will stay with you. Thank you for writing such a fab book and letting me review it. I loved it and recommended it to so many people.

A nice unexpected gem.
Couldn't put it down - doesn't happen often these days.
highly recommended.

I love this book. everyone I've told about it is either reading it, about to read it or has just read it! I couldn't stop thinking about Eleanor after I'd finished. Buy it, read it, and fall in love with it