Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine

Glasgow, Scoltland…

Meet Eleanor Oliphant, a 29-year-old woman whose life is a routine.

Plot

Eleanor lives in Glasgow and every day from Monday to Friday she catches the bus to go to the office at 8:30. She has been working there for 9 years. She lives a simple life on her own and she doesn’t need neither friends nor friendly neighbours.

This until when, one night at the bus stop, she met a handsome and elegant man…

“When I saw him walk on stage, I just knew. He was wearing a very stylish hat, but that wasn’t what drew me in. No – I’m not that shallow. He was wearing a three-piece suit, with the bottom button of his waistcoat unfastened. A true gentleman leaves the bottom button unfastened, Mummy always said.”

Gail Honeyman

This encounter will influence her behaviour: she will start to care more about her appereance, her style and the way she lives surrounded by people. These changes will lead her to start talking to her colleagues and especially to Raymond Gibbons, who will become a really important friend for her. However, like everything else in life, these events will bring lots of changes into Eleanor’s character.

Will Eleanor win the man’s heart? Will she be able to manage those changes in her routine? But, most importantly: will the lonely and socially awkward woman be able to accept herself?

Loneliness

Gail Honeyman offers with this 2017 novel many insights into the current society with its peculiarities and its flaws. Nowadays more and more people are considered like lonely wolves: they live alone and don’t talk to anybody, not even at work. This matter doesn’t affect only the elderly but also people in their early twenties or thirties (like Eleanor) and teenagers too. Being alone has become almost a habit for people, especially for those who don’t have many friends and live alone. For example, Eleanor knows that Friday is the last day of the week during which she can have conversations with human beings.

This subject matter shouldn’t be ignored and more people should be aware of what is happening in our society so as to help limiting this phenomenon.

“I’m a sole survivor – I’m Eleanor Oliphant. I don’t need anyone else – there’s no big hole in my life, no missing part of my own particular puzzle. I’m a self-contained entity.”

Gail Honeyman

Final thoughts about the main character: Eleanor

This book was intriguing thanks to the protagonist: Eleanor is an indipendent woman who knows herself and what she wants. She knows how to fight in order to achieve her goals. The most particular aspect of this character was her honesty towards herself as well as her sense of humour, two things that can really help the readers identifying themselves into her character.

This isn’t a love story, or at least not the romantic love between partners. Its a story about friendship, self-confidence and especially loneliness.