Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive – but not how to live.
Eleanor leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.
This is what I read on a book swap site while browsing the recently added books and decided to order it. And what a wonderful find it was. I promise you, I do not drink two bottles of vodka every weekend, but I did relate to the experience of going home from work on a Friday and not talking to a single human before getting back on Monday morning. Unlike Eleanore I know, this is not ‘fine’, but like her, I don’t quite know what else to do. How not to be a too judgemental, filter-free introvert. But the first step in getting better is acknowledging it and reaching out to the world.
“If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”
Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
So here – I am reaching out to let you know you are not alone in being lonely and here is a book that you may enjoy and get some inspiration to look at people and the world a bit differently.
*And don’t take my word for it – it has a 4.25 on Goodreads, based on 1,060,608 ratings.
It won the British Book Award for Book of the Year (2018), Costa Book Award for First Novel (2017), Audie Award for Fiction (2018) and was nominated for a bunch of awards.