Eleanor Oliphant is doing absolutely fine, thanks. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meals and buys the same two bottles of vodka every weekend. See? Completely fine. Except that sometimes she isn't.
Eleanor is a character who will stay with me for a long time. The journey she goes on throughout this book is extraordinary. When we first meet her, all the signs point to her being on the autistic spectrum - she finds social communication challenging and her life is governed by her routines. it's only as the book progresses that we learn more about Eleanor, her past and the tragedy she has lived through. When she and a colleague she doesn't like very much help an old man who collapses in the street the three of them develop a friendship that will change each of them.
The more I read of this book, the more I loved it. Eleanor's destructive relationship with her Mummy lends a dark edge to what might otherwise be quite a twee book and the result is a book that has a perfect balance of happy and sad. The way the background between Eleanor and her Mummy is paced exactly right, too.
I really liked the fact that this book didn't factor in a romance. Well, not a real romance anyway. It would have been so easy for this to have slid down the slippery slope of 'My love will fix you' between Raymond and Eleanor. Instead they support each other through friendship and this seemed to make their relationship stronger than if they were just shag-partners. Don't get me wrong - I love a good romance. But it seemed to me that it was necessary for Eleanor to save herself, instead of being saved by external forces.
This was an unexpected gem of a book and one of my favourite reads of 2017. I listened to it on Audible and the narrator really brought the characters to life.
5 stars