I can't believe how much i loved this book and Eleanor. I related to her so much and i was with her every step of the way. The more i read the more i loved it and was really surprised it was a debut novel as it was so well written.

Praise for Gail Honeyman. A debut book like no other. This was a powerful novel to read, uplifting and inspiring, just makes you remember that being fine isn't always enough.

Absolutely loved reading this book. It's a bit different from my normal style of book but I loved the style of writing and I could really identify with the conundrums that Eleanor faces - several times I laughed out loud (not good when you're on a packed train).

I had seen various reviews about this book which made me want to read it and I wasn't disappointed. The main character is not naturally likeable but that made you want her to be ok and be liked by everyone. I didn't put it down as wanted to know what happened next and why she was the way she was.
The writer kept you engaged and the story unfolded at the right pace. Would recommend.

Curious and charming. These are the words that I would us to describe the delightful debut by Gail Honeyman.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is the story of (surprisingly) Eleanor Oliphant. A 30-something girl who lives live in a very structured way. She gets up, goes to work, has her lunch, does the crossword, goes home, and sleeps. She repeats this rigmarole with almost robotic precision. But there is something behind the routine and something about Eleanor.

Throughout the novel we see Eleanor open herself up to new possibilities, new friendships and new experiences and whilst all this is happening she is dealing with the ghosts of the past that are haunting her.

To use the word journey seems so corny and trivial but that is exactly what Eleanor Oliphant is on in this book. We, the readers, go along for the ride; we discover just exactly what it was that made Eleanor the way she is alongside her. It isn’t a unique concept in books but it is one that is executed magnificently.

Eleanor Oliphant is a book that even the hardest of hearts would find hard not to enjoy.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is available now.

For more information regarding Harper Collins (@HarperCollinsUK) please visit www.harpercollins.co.uk.

Brilliantly funny and heartbreakingly sad in equal measure, I loved every minute of this book. Utterly readable - Gail Honeyman has created a wonderful character in Eleanor Oliphant. A reminder to all of us to be kinder, and to see beyond first impressions and outward appearances. One of the best books i've read this year.

This is a very funny book with a sad theme running through it. It made me look at everyday things we say and do in a very different way. The two main characters Eleanor and Raymond are so diverse with Eleanor being very withdrawn and not understanding the society she lives in because of her upbringing and Raymond being the older more mature guy who understands the world. The sharp contrasts make this book an easy read. I had guessed the ending but it was well written and new information was slowly introduced to the reader. I would recommend this as a great summer light read and it will make the reader chuckle when relaxing on vacation or in the garden. The idea of Eleanor is however not funny however but a sad thing to consider and I think that Gail Honeyman has been very tender in her description of Eleanor's life and her difficulties in coming to terms with the reality of the modern world and its idiosyncrasies. A great read.

An outstanding debut novel. I initially resisted Eleanor but she totally won me over - what a character! I found the novel to be nuanaced and very moving. Highly recommended.

Gail Honeyman has created in Eleanor Oliphant a remarkably engaging and endearing character, for all her lack of social graces. She is a unique and fascinating personality whose carefully learned life skills are increasingly not a good fit with her life. I was reminded at times of Don Tillman in The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. My heart went out to her very quickly and I loved this story, which is beautifully written. It's an unusual, delightful tale which deserves to be widely read.

You can’t help but love Eleanor Oliphant, despite all her eccentricities and her complete lack of social skills.

As you read you may feel the need to give Eleanor a little nudge when she says something rude, completely inappropriate or politically incorrect.

Then at times you just want embrace and comfort her, especially when she is interacting with her mother. Or in my case I would happily give her a mother a mouthful of abuse worthy of an aggravated sailor.

The reader follows Eleanor on her path of self-discovery, as she embraces the novelty and finer nuances of friendship, and interacting with people who actually care about her. After years of complete emotional isolation she starts to test the tepid waters of unknown situations, new relationships and finally she steps out of her shell.

She seems to be unable to halt her self-inflicted cycle of punishment and destruction when she is by herself. That is when the loneliness kicks in, and the vodka helps her to forget all those terrible memories she keeps hidden deep inside her.

I have to admit to drawing the stares of a room full of people when I was reading this book. Laughing out loud and chortling to yourself in your doctor’s waiting room is, in my humble opinion, a definitive sign you have picked a cracking read. This is actually quite a heart-rending read at times, so kudos to Honeyman for being able to infuse it with a very subtle layer of humour.

This is a story about the invisible people in our society. We live in an era of disinterest and lack of compassion. People like Eleanor are often swallowed whole by the shallow and cold attitudes they encounter on a day-to-day basis. Nobody cares what they have been through or has any desire to help them get through life with a little more ease.

This is the kind of read you pass on or recommend to others, because it’s a story, a lesson and it is also a reflection of the mirror of life nearly all of us try to avoid seeing. A poignant and yet in equal measures a heart-warming reading experience.
*Thank you to HarperCollins Uk and NetGalley for my copy of Eleanor Oliphant.*

I absolutely loved this book, you laugh and cry for this wonderfully weird and yet fascinating character as her story unfolds. Despite a very unhappy childhood, she has survived and we see her morph into a very loveable woman as she uncovers her past with the help of the one person who befriends her despite her determination to shun friends. Please read this.

Eleanor Oliphant is an unusual woman. She lives each day exactly the same, has the same routine each weekend and discovers she wants more out of life. She meets the new IT tech at the office and they help an elderly man. She now has two friends. As she chips away at the routine life she has lived suppressed memories start appearing. There is dry humor and wit in this story as well as heartache and optimism. This is the first book that Gail Honeyman has written and I hope it's one of many to come.

I knew as soon as I began reading this book that I was going to enjoy it. Narrated by Eleanor the words just flew off the page as if I was listening to someone right there in the room telling them to me. I loved going on this voyage of discovery with Eleanor, about who she is and is becoming.

Eleanor has built a life and a routine which begins to be broken down - eradicated, until unfortunately she doesn't know who she is anymore. One simple action and it begins to unfold so many avenues for Eleanor. For every laugh there was a moment of sorrow and for that you need to be prepared.

At first I thought Eleanor was much older than her 30 years, she has such mannerisms and ways which belie her youth. She certainly speaks as she finds, meaning no malice, but simply the truth as she sees it. Reminding me of someone on the Asperger's spectrum. If she needs help she just goes to who logically can provide it, putting herself completely in their hands, such as the ladies at the department store and their choice of new clothing for newly acquired social life. Many a time I gasped out loud at some of her nuances and turn of phrase, so entertaining and laugh out loud funny.

I did begin to guess some of Eleanor's past but only towards the end of the book. as she begins to reveal more of true self. I like the way the book ended, just a couple of loose ends. It is rare to read a book in which the voice is so completely of a character that I forgot I was reading a novel, but the author achieved just that for me.

I wonder if we will see more of Eleanor? I do hope so as I would love to catch up with her again some time.

I've thoroughly enjoyed this book and I am giving it 5 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for a copy to review.

I was really happy when the publicist for Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine contacted me to ask if I’d like a review copy as I’d seen the book mentioned quite a lot on social media and was really keen to read it.

Eleanor Oliphant is a brilliant character. She is very stuck in her ways, and at first, seems quite abrasive. She is in her thirties but dresses and behaves like someone much older. Very soon it starts to become apparent that Eleanor has had a very difficult childhood and is just trying to cope with life as best she can. I felt like she was very enmeshed in how her mother had treated her when she was young and that she is talking in her mother’s voice and has adopted all her mother’s beliefs and attitudes to people and life. It broke my heart to see how much Eleanor, whilst maintaining that she was completely fine, was drinking vodka to get through the weekends on her own and the loneliness just emanated from her. I very quickly realised that Eleanor actually wasn’t okay and that she longs to have the same things that everyone else wants.

‘I have always taken great pride in managing life alone. I’m a sole survivor – I’m Eleanor Oliphant. I don’t need anyone else – there’s no big hole in my life, no missing part of my own particular puzzle. I’m a self-contained entity. That’s what I’ve always told myself at any rate’.

Eleanor’s loneliness really comes through when she goes to see a local band with one of her colleagues from work, and she immediately realises that the lead singer of this band is the man for her. Her attempts to get to know more about him make her seem very obsessive but I really believed that she just has never had anyone to learn from when it comes to meeting a potential partner. Eleanor has never even had a friend, she grew up in care and no one has ever shown her true kindness so how could she know how to approach making a friend or forming a relationship.

Eleanor does have such resilience in life though and I really admired how she didn’t let what people said about her get to her. She sometimes overhears colleagues laughing at her but she just takes it in her stride. It’s sad that she doesn’t seem to know that it doesn’t have to be that way, but also I really respect how she could just let things go. Eleanor’s thought processes as she finds her way through life are very amusing at times.

If I’m ever unsure as to the correct course of action, I’ll think, ‘What would a ferret do?’ or, ‘How would a salamander respond to this situation?’ Invariably, I find the right answer.

I loved seeing how Eleanor began to find her way in the world as she finds herself in a situation with another colleague, Raymond, when they end up helping an elderly man who falls in the street in front of them. Raymond is such a lovely man and seemed to see through Eleanor’s abrasiveness and he takes her under his wing. It was wonderful to see Eleanor beginning to understand how friendship works, and she starts to blossom. Eleanor’s manner in replying to a message from Raymond about going out for lunch shows how she is finding her way in this new situation of having a friend.

‘That would be fine. Thank you’. Daringly, I didn’t put my name, because I realised he’d know it was from me.



The book then moves on to the bad days where we start to find out what happened in Eleanor’s past to make her how she is. This section of the book was really hard to read because I’d formed such a soft spot for her so to find out what she had lived through was heartbreaking. Her problem with alcohol is also much more apparent as a real problem, and seeing the level of desperation and distress in Eleanor made me want to reach through the pages to try and help her.

Eleanor is a truly memorable character, she’s not someone I’ll forget in a hurry. This is a brilliant novel, I savoured every minute of reading it and it’s one I will keep and re-read in the future. I actually feel genuinely quite bereft at having to leave Eleanor behind now I’ve finished the book.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is a tender and moving look at loneliness, at how it is to be given a chance and what it is to find a friend having had a lifetime of just getting through the days. A beautiful novel that I highly recommend.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is out now!

I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

It took a chapter or so before I got swept up in this book. But once immersed, it was wonderful. Funny, sharp and honest, it is a wonder.

That's what we say, isn't it? Even when we're anything but fine.

Eleanor Oliphant is completely sure she is completely fine. She has a degree in classics, a flat and a job. She arrives at work punctually, has never taken a day off sick and doesn't take all her annual leave. True, her workmates find her unsociable and her manner is over formal, old fashioned and that she has some odd ideas - all gleaned from 'Mummy'. Eleanor is lonely, acutely lonely, existing through crosswords, interesting television documentaries and a bottle of vodka drunk over the course of the weekend. She has no friends and doesn't feel the need to acquire any, except, well, it might be nice, she thinks, to share life with a significant other.

On a rare visit to a gig, Eleanor develops a crush on a musician, Johnny Lomond (Tweeting as JohnnyRocks). She is quite sure he is the one. Starting with a painful bikini wax (an unusual first step in a fashion makeover), she devotes her energy and resources into her 'project' to get Johnny Lomond. Meanwhile, her computer at work malfunctions so she has to call Raymond, the IT techie. When he arrives at her desk to fix it, she extends her hand and introduces herself as 'Miss Oliphant'. Eleanor disapproves of Raymond, the casual way he wears his clothes, his speech, his emails, his timekeeping and his table manners.

One evening Eleanor and Raymond, happening to leave the office at the same time, see an elderly man, who is carrying shopping across the road, collapse. Eleanor is all for doing nothing, remarking that the man is probably drunk, by Raymond goes straight in to help and, instinctively, involves Eleanor. This is the point where some sunshine begins to creep into Eleanor's lonely life, bitterly resisted at first, but, incrementally, with Raymond - a saint on the printed page - she thaws. They become friends, close friends.

But what about the musician, Johnny Lomond? What indeed? He doesn't know that he is supposed to be 'the one' for Eleanor, because she hasn't met him face-to-face. Can he really be the solution to all Eleanor's loneliness, her relationship with her poisonous 'Mummy', unpleasant reminisces of her early childhood and of being in foster care, and of some terrible 'fire' which she prefers to suppress?

This is the first novel published by Gail Honeyman. She writes with confidence, setting the action in Glasgow, a city with which she is clearly familiar. Eleanor's character - old fashioned, prudish, snobbish, judgmental and brittle - is spectacular, spectacularly imagined and spectacularly depicted. Raymond is a welcome, normal counter-balance. It's unusual to have the computer man as the normal one, also refreshing.

The plot rambles from time to time, but never loses its thread. By half way through, the ending has become pretty obvious, and there are no twists, but it's a satisfying ending.

This novel stands out against everything I've read recently. I go back to the word I used before - spectacular.

I'm not going to give this book a star rating because I abandoned it pretty quickly. I think I only reached the 10% mark before I threw the towel in. At first, I found the story, and Eleanor, adorable and quirky, and I found myself chuckling along to her internal monologue. But after a while, I grew tired of it.

I've read some lovely reviews of this novel, so I might give it a try again one day, but for now its narrative and the author's writing just isn't compelling enough to keep me reading.

What a gem of a book, it made me have laugh out loud moments as well as making me sad. Simply loved it. Eleanor Oliphant has worked in a design studio doing the accounts since she left University.

She is used to being on her own since that thing happened which tore her family apart. She still however talks to Mummy once a week on the phone.

She never strays from her routine, same lunch, same dinners each week night and same bottles of Glen's vodka to see her through the weekend. She's social awkward and keeps herself to herself but a compelling character - several instances made me laugh out loud.

She finds a friend at work. Kind hearted Raymond who helps her to see the world in a different light. They spend a lot of time together after helping Sammy, an older man who fell in the street. It's a cracker of a book and I highly recommend it

Eleanor Oliphant is an uplifting, fantastic read. A gem. Gail Honeyman has created a truly brilliant character in Eleanor; an administrator in a design company, who keeps herself to herself, eats meal deals for lunch each day, downing two bottles of vodka to ease the ache of loneliness at weekends. This novel could easily have been titled the Mystery of Eleanor Oliphant, as Honeyman carefully reveals the layers of Eleanor’s life that have made her the lonely, distrustful, socially awkward person that she’s become. The strength of Honeyman’s character, of Eleanor’s voice, very much reminded me of Maud in Elizabeth is Missing – storytelling at its best. However, Eleanor wasn’t the only character I loved in this novel, I also found myself rooting for Eleanor’s single friend and supporter, Raymond. Everyone should have a Raymond to call upon in times of need. I was delighted to learn that Reese Witherspoon’s film production company plans on turning Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine into a movie. Having loved the book, I can’t wait to see the film. A cracking debut…