Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman

My five star book review for Gail Honeyman’s, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. This contemporary fiction book was loveable from page one and I’m still thinking about it days later. This is one you should be following the hype for and read it!

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (2018), Gail Honeyman

Themes: Fiction, contemporary, abuse (sexual assault is lightly featured)

Reading Format: Paperback

Pages: 390

5 STAR

Eleanor Oliphant may be completely fine, but I am not! This book utterly destroyed me, it built me up and made me feel all happy and then BAM it hit me with a whole bunch of feelings and emotions that I was not expecting. I wanted to write the start of this review whilst my feelings… and my tears are still raw because, wow. (24-hours-later-Beth has come in to add that this may well be a favourite book, it tackles some really important topic, in a really well written way.)

I went into this book not knowing much from the blurb, I just knew that a lot of people had enjoyed reading it, which was enough for me. I like to see if a book lives up to the hype and this one did! I wasn’t sure about Eleanor to start with, she seemed a difficult character, but I soon grew to love her and now I am not okay with leaving her.

This is a story about her life and her past and how she is dealing with the difficulties she had as a child. She is certainly an unusual person, but in all of the best ways. She is growing and learning and becoming her own person, breaking off from those who would control her, she ends as a very different Eleanor to where she is when this book starts. I feel like I always say I want the absolute best for characters I fall in love with, but oh my god I really, really do want this for Eleanor. I need to know how her story ends, I feel like I’ve been left wanting more!

This whole book is leading towards finding out what happened to Eleanor and why she is the way she is. You are pulled along by intrigue and it doesn’t let you in until the very end. This book had my full attention throughout, I felt like I was right there with Eleanor, in her strange little home. I loved that this was set in Scotland, especially being part of the UK and being able to know what shops Eleanor was talking about. Made a nice change from being clueless about American shops and brands.

This book stands as an excellent advocate for mental health, especially when it comes to showing the realistic side to getting help in the UK. It was true to the NHS’ standard method and I appreciate that the author had either researched or gone through this process herself. Exploring the solutions to help with mental illness isn’t an easy subject to tackle, but I think Gail Honeyman does it really well and is both thoughtful and thorough in her writing.

I would simply leave you with the words, go and read this book.