Now Read This: 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine' by Gail Honeyman

“Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” is one of those wonderfully written novels with quirky characters. Eleanor is a friendless 30-year-old woman who works in the finance office of a small Scottish graphics design firm. She is comfortable in her very routine life reading all kinds of books, eating the same meals alone in her apartment and spending her weekends entirely alone except for two bottles of vodka. One reviewer wrote: “Walking in Eleanor’s practical black Velcro shoes is delightfully amusing, her prudish observations leavened with a privately puckish humor. But readers will also be drawn in by her tragic back story, which slowly reveals how she came to be so entirely Eleanor.” One day her life begins to change. She develops a crush on a bar musician and begins to make small changes in her appearance so he’ll notice her. At the same time she is reluctantly drawn into a friendship with Raymond, the new IT guy at work, and with Sammy, an older man she and Raymond help save. Through her friendships with Raymond and Sammy and their respective families, Eleanor encounters lovely, kind people ... something she did not experience in her upbringing or her last romantic involvement. As the story progresses, you realize how important it is to have even just one person in your life who loves you for who you are and cares for you. I loved this book because it’s funny, poignant and, in the end, hopeful. It would make a great read for a book discussion group. Also, NoveList listed that this title is soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon.

NoveList’s recommendations of similar titles include “A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman and “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion, two more of my favorite recent heartwarming stories. The library owns copies of both these titles in book and audiobook format. “A Man Called Ove” also was made into a movie and the library has a DVD copy of it.

As a side note — I enjoyed representing the Library at the recent TBY Senior Expo in September and meeting some of my fellow book lovers. I brought copies of a list of all the books we have reviewed over the years. If you would like a copy, please email me at bmartin@capelibrary.org and I would be happy to send you one.

Happy readings!