Review by leilorenzo - Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

leilorenzo 's review for:

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

4.75

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

What a journey!
Great book, don’t know how Honeyman managed to squeeze so many funny moments in such a tragic story. Lovely characters, a black cat, a socially awkward main character, loads of trauma (please, do check the content warnings).
The audiobook is great, and I'm quite sure the Scottish accents added relief during the sad and/or sad parts.

I feel sorry for beautiful people. Beauty, from the moment you possess it, is already slipping away, ephemeral. That must be difficult. Always having to prove that there’s more to you, wanting people to see beneath the surface, to be loved for yourself[...].

Some people, weak people, fear solitude. What they fail to understand is that there’s something very liberating about it; once you realize that you don’t need anyone, you can take care of yourself. That’s the thing: it’s best just to take care of yourself. You can’t protect other people, however hard you try. You try, and you fail, and your world collapses around you, burns down to ashes.

that I understood, perhaps more than most, about loss, about how difficult things must be, and would continue to be. However much you loved someone, it wasn’t always enough. Love alone couldn’t keep them safe . . .

Both of them looked overwhelmed, which was understandable. It takes a long time to learn to live with loss, assuming you ever manage it. After all these years, I’m still something of a work in progress in that regard.

I wasn’t good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose.

Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.

That had allowed me to exist, but I was starting to understand that I needed, wanted, something more than that now.

Content Warnings