Book Review : Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant, a 29 year old woman lives a very mundane life. She lives alone, eats the same lunch every day, spends her weekend over two bottles of Vodka and talks to her "mummy" once every week. Her lack of social skills has made her unacceptable at work and also at other places, where people want to conform to certain norms for being acceptable. It is a situation Eleanor has made peace with and she is happy staying away from people. With an unhappy and traumatic past she indulges in drinking over the weekend to keep those memories away. It is only when she meets a fellow colleague Raymond and they together save an old man from dying, things start changing for her. Her relation with the old man and his family, with Raymond's mother, brings her face to face with family life, which she never got a chance to experience and thus begins her transformation. Her courage to face her past trauma which she had kept hidden for years, her struggle to confront her "mummy" who has been unduly dominating her, is a tale worth mentioning.

The story begins by getting us familiar with Eleanor's day to day life, her mundane work, her colleagues who make fun of her behind her back, her boss who does not think she is capable enough. Her once-in-week call with her mummy talks about a traumatic past. Growing up in foster homes, where no one is willing to understand her, shaped Eleanor to who she is today. Her panic, her trauma, her anxiety and her sadness and helplessness makes our heart go out to her. The suspense build in the first half of the book is really well deserved, it kept me invested in the book and wanting to read further.

However, I felt the book fails to hold the fort towards the end. The suspense built with regards to Eleanor's childhood was not really revealed that well, it was given out suddenly and quite out of the blue. The way the whole story was being built I was expecting a lot more insight about her past. To me it felt like a very abrupt disclosure and too little information about her past. The incidents towards the end of the book did not seem very coherent as well as if the author was in a hurry to finish the book.

Overall it is a good read. A woman's ability to conquer the most traumatic situation of her life and to heal and transform from it is worth mentioning.