Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

In Gail Honeyman’s novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, she has created a beautifully imagined character in Eleanor. Prudish and precise, lonely and devoid of social skills, Eleanor’s life begins to change when she becomes infatuated with a local musician.  Her touching certainty that meeting him will lead to true love leads her to tentative attempts at sprucing herself up, and a reluctant friendship with a slovenly but kind-hearted co-worker and a sweet old man they rescue from a fall in the street.  As her emotional life begins to blossom, the reader slowly learns her traumatic backstory, and what has made her the way she is. This story is funny, tragic, and charming, heartwarming without any stickiness, and very memorable.  I didn’t want the book to end.