Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

We start Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by meeting Eleanor, a woman who holds a boring job in a boring office eating the same things every day and drinks herself into a stupor during the weekends so she can begin her boring life again the next week. She struggles in social situations, makes generally unkind, but true assessments of those around her, and frequently offends others.  We slowly get to know more about Eleanor's history as she begins a tentative friendship with the IT guy at her office. 

I was not into this character at first. She was a rude alcoholic with some mean tendencies and frankly, I'd just read The Woman in the Window and I was sort of over the unreliable addicted narrator thing. But Eleanor grew on me. I started giggling at her very honest, non-sugarcoated assessments of people and activities around her. I started rooting for her to break out of her rut and make friends. I started to care.

The writing is so good.  Honeyman creates a friendship with the reader and Eleanor. My best friend often talks about how she thought I was a complete bitch when she first met me, but our closeness grew like a terrible fungus. Honeyman replicates that very experience in this novel. At first, I was really put off by Eleanor. She was so closed off that I just didn't want to hang out with her. But gradually Honeyman let us learn more and more about Eleanor in a way that exactly replicates real life friendships. I wanted to spend time with her. When she was sad, I was sad. When she had successes, I pumped my fist in the air for her.   It took me a week to read the first third of the book and one evening on the couch, staying up past my bedtime, to finish the rest.

Thumbs way up for me.