A review by lanieq
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

3.0

Mixed feeling overall. I found Eleanor unlikeable for most of the book, largely because she's so condescending and judgmental of everyone around her for the most superficial reasons. You figure out kind of early on why this is, but it doesn't make it any less annoying. I did have a lot of empathy for her, understanding what it's like to be socially awkward and to grow up in an abusive home, and how you internalize the voice of your abuser(s) so that you don't even realize it's their voice and not your own. This, along with the fact that a lot of her takes on things were humorous, and the genuinely kind people who come into her life, kept me going. But then, despite how horrific her childhood was and the fact that at 30 years old she's spent most of her life burying her trauma and has had no real relationships with others, she seems to make dramatic progress after a few months of outpatient therapy. She grows a lot as a person, but then near the end still mentally refers to an overweight person on the bus as a "fatty". And the totally unnecessary twist near the end, that never gets any real attention after it's revealed, just one throwaway sentence about how this is something she'll need to work on with her therapist. Usually when there is a dramatic twist, it throws everything that came before in a whole new light. But in this case, it really doesn't add much of anything and instead left me with a feeling of having been lied to over the previous 400+ pages.