Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman
Review by Priscilla Comen
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman
Review by Priscilla Comen
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is the delightful debut novel by this Scottish author. Eleanor is a character with kwirky traits that author Honeyman has drawn with a fine pen. She’s a creature of habit who wakes at the same time daily, eats the same breakfast each day, arrives at her office job promptly, and goes straight home afterward to her bottle of Vodka and chips.
She avoids human contact, but falls in love from a distance with a musician, Johnny Lomond, whom she saw at a charity gig at a pub, the first time she ever went.
He was gorgeous with a velvet voice and she looked him up on Facebook all week-end. She talks to her “mummy each Wednesday night and author Honeyman hints to us of a serious event that left Eleanor’s face and neck scarred. “Mummy” always tells her she is ugly, freakish, vile.
When Eleanor and Raymond, a colleague at her office, help an elderly man who has fallen in the street, she joins Raymond at Sammy’s hospital bed to cheer up the old man. Who knows how fate directs our lives? Eleanor bravely agrees to go to Raymond’s mother’s house with him and actually enjoys her visit. His mother gives praise and warm wishes, quite a change for Eleanor. She helped with household chores. Another day, she decides to improve her appearance in order to impress Johnny Lomond, should she meet him. She has a body shave and a manicure, chooses green polish. When her “mummy” phones her as usual, she is mean and hateful.
Eleanor starts going out to lunch with Raymond once a week and finds she enjoys it, in spite of his sloppy clothes, his beard, and messy eating habits. They go to a party for Sammy’s forty year old son and then to Sammy’s funeral after Sammy suddenly dies. She buys a smart new outfit for each event. With new shoes as well. Is she coming out of her isolation? She still hopes to meet her dream man, Johnny Lomond. After she sees him at a nightclub, Eleanor’s life goes from bad to worse, and she plans to end it.
We follow her to counseling and to kind thoughts from her office mates. How will Eleanor fare as time passes? Will we discover the cause of her depression and the cause of her anger towards her “mummy”? Find out in this wonderful story of a complicated life on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
She avoids human contact, but falls in love from a distance with a musician, Johnny Lomond, whom she saw at a charity gig at a pub, the first time she ever went.
He was gorgeous with a velvet voice and she looked him up on Facebook all week-end. She talks to her “mummy each Wednesday night and author Honeyman hints to us of a serious event that left Eleanor’s face and neck scarred. “Mummy” always tells her she is ugly, freakish, vile.
When Eleanor and Raymond, a colleague at her office, help an elderly man who has fallen in the street, she joins Raymond at Sammy’s hospital bed to cheer up the old man. Who knows how fate directs our lives? Eleanor bravely agrees to go to Raymond’s mother’s house with him and actually enjoys her visit. His mother gives praise and warm wishes, quite a change for Eleanor. She helped with household chores. Another day, she decides to improve her appearance in order to impress Johnny Lomond, should she meet him. She has a body shave and a manicure, chooses green polish. When her “mummy” phones her as usual, she is mean and hateful.
Eleanor starts going out to lunch with Raymond once a week and finds she enjoys it, in spite of his sloppy clothes, his beard, and messy eating habits. They go to a party for Sammy’s forty year old son and then to Sammy’s funeral after Sammy suddenly dies. She buys a smart new outfit for each event. With new shoes as well. Is she coming out of her isolation? She still hopes to meet her dream man, Johnny Lomond. After she sees him at a nightclub, Eleanor’s life goes from bad to worse, and she plans to end it.
We follow her to counseling and to kind thoughts from her office mates. How will Eleanor fare as time passes? Will we discover the cause of her depression and the cause of her anger towards her “mummy”? Find out in this wonderful story of a complicated life on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.