Blink Book Review #6 - “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” by Gail Honeyman

"Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" by Scottish writer Gail Honeyman caught my eye at the library on a book display for Mental Health Awareness Month. The cover and the title drew me in (although I ended up “reading” as an audiobook on a driving trip – the accent of the Scottish main character is spot-on).

At the beginning of the book, Eleanor appears to be an eccentric young woman with a one-dimensional, rigid, and highly judgmental world view. She seems to take every experience and interaction so literally that she can’t fathom why a barista would need to know her name when ordering coffee. She's baffled at why anyone would have reason to eat in a restaurant where food is more expensive and more likely to have been touched by unclean hands.

I felt the book started slow, but, as it progressed, I realized the tempo was probably part of the author’s scene-setting to lay out Eleanor’s narrow world perspective. Bit by bit, Honeyman brings the reader into the story of the early trauma in Eleanor’s life. Details are doled very sparingly through often ironic humor. Slowly, we learn Eleanor has scars on her face, grew up in foster care, went to college on scholarship and was involved in an abusive relationship as a young adult – life challenges that would certainly shape anyone’s world view.

The author describes Eleanor’s rigid personal and professional routines with just enough humor to keep the story moving. Eleanor toils away in a low-level administrative job during the week and drinks through several vodka bottles at home alone on the weekends. She talks with her estranged (and seemingly strange) mother every Wednesday night never fighting back against her verbal abuse and tirades. Her socially awkward exchanges with co-workers are cringy-worthy as Eleanor makes no attempt to understand the dance of human interaction. Despite all of this, Eleanor has learned to believe everything is “completely fine.”

The pace begins to pick up when Eleanor and Raymond, an equally awkward colleague from the IT Department, come upon an elderly gentleman who has collapsed in the street. They help get him to the hospital. The gentleman’s situation and his kind family provide a backdrop for Eleanor and Raymond to participate in a growing number of basic human interactions that she has never had reason to experience in her 30 years. Empathy, kindness, an awareness of a range of emotions, and the magic of human connection all begin to creep into Eleanor’s increasingly expanding world where it’s OK that everything isn’t “completely fine.”

After getting to the end of the book with its plot twist finale, I enjoyed looking back at how many of Eleanor’s quicks and assumptions make perfect sense once the full puzzle of her life is exposed.

While the understated humor in the book certainly carries the plot, there is a story line around mental health always looming in the background. Eleanor’s childhood trauma informs every part of her life, but she has absolutely no sense of life outside of her narrow existence. Her growing awareness and acceptance of personal self-awareness that everything isn’t “completely fine” can be a bright light for anyone who has struggled their way through difficulties.

In 2022, I set out to get off the screens and back to books for the summer with a goal of reading a book a week. My accountability was writing short Blink Book Reviews (so short you can read them in a blink). Join my Blink Book Review FB group to follow along for the 2023 summer series. You can email me at reba@themedwaygroup.com.