Description: Where’d You Go Bernadette meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Gail Honeyman’s debut novel is satisfyingly funny. It has the deadpan humour of Where’d You Go Bernadette coming from a woman who does not give a flip. And it has the socially awkward protagonist solving a low-level mystery, reminiscent of The Curious Incident.
I held off on reading this novel because it had so much praise when it came out and then became a Reese’s Book Club pick. But I needn’t have worried. This book lives up to the hype.
Eleanor Oliphant struggles with social skills and as a result sticks to herself. She’s awkward. Loves a routine and a crossword. Miss Oliphant does not have any friends, nor does she welcome them. Her only friend is Polly the plant. Her only visitor is a social worker. Eleanor has been a ward of the state since she was a child and there’s the edge of a mystery through the novel about what exactly created these conditions.
One day she falls in love with a musician and suddenly Eleanor is in make-over fever. Around the same time, she meets Raymond, the bumbling IT guy from the office. Despite Eleanor’s lack of social graces, Raymond finds her funny. His bighearted nature also means Eleanor now has a friend, whether she wants one or not.
Favourite Moment: All of them. Eleanor leads a fairly sheltered life and through the novel ends up having all sorts of normal encounters that she’s never had before, or that she’s never considered having. In the midst of a makeover moment, she ends up at the make-up counter getting a smokey eye. Here’s the conversation with the technician.
“Well,” she said, “what do you think?”
“I look like a small Madagascan primate, or perhaps a North American raccoon,” I said. “It’s charming!”
She laughed so much she had to cross her legs, and she shooed me down from the chair and toward the door.
“I’m supposed to try and sell you the products and brushes,” she said. “If you want any, come back tomorrow and ask for Irene!”
I nodded, waved good-bye. Whoever Irene was, there was literally more chance of me purchasing weapons-grade plutonium from her.”
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine is the perfect read for anyone who loved The Rosie Project, Where’d You Go Bernadette, or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. This is a fun, quirky read about an oddball woman who works in an office and otherwise sticks to herself, and her routine of frozen pizza and lots of vodka. Until that all changes.
