Eleanor Oliphant lives a completely routine life, which is exactly what she wants. She avoids social interaction, working her boring office job from 9-5, and goes home and spends her weekends alone. She has weekly phone calls with her mother, who is locked in a mental health facility. After watching a handsome singer, she falls in love and is inspired to change in order to seduce him. This change is catalyzed by her unlikely friendship with Raymond, an IT specialist at her job, and Sammy, an elderly man who suffers a fall. The three of them become extremely close when Eleanor and Raymond help him get to a hospital, and Eleanor’s growth continues.
This book was weird and I have a ton of mixed feelings about it, so this review will be very disjointed.
To start positively, I always enjoy reading about neuroatypical leads in contemporary books, and Eleanor is, for the most part, is a great main character to follow. I thought her attempts to make herself over were really sweet and the scenes where she meets new friends were heartwarming. Her journey from frumpy, uncaring office worker in a job she doesn’t care about to a woman who actively tries to live her life according to her own rules was relatable and inspiring.
Despite her quirky social ineptitude (she has created a relationship with a musician based on his social media, even stalking this man’s location and finding his home) there are subtle hints that Eleanor Oliphant really is not fine. At all. This is where the book gets weird. She speaks about her beloved musician as though he is suave and dignified, and based on his posts we know he’s, to quote Tiffany “New York” Pollard, ‘nothing of the sort’.
She is regularly the butt of mean jokes and cruel gossip, and even the reader is encouraged to laugh at her quirks, but is it really okay to make fun of someone who clearly isn’t neurotypical? We aren’t doing that, right? And on the subject, what is her illness? I can’t decide if this was left ambiguous intentionally or if Honeyman simply didn’t care to research mental illness.
She has massive scars on her face from an incident that occurs in her past, but dismisses her own thoughts when the topic comes up. She cries in a stranger’s home when asked about her family. She describes in graphic detail the horrific abuse she suffered from her ex-boyfriend.
She casually discusses her alcohol use, she regularly buys and consumes 2 liter sized bottles of vodka each weekend and is even turned away at one point because she tried to buy liquor before she could legally purchase it. She is able to go to pubs and social gatherings and keep her drinking to socially acceptable levels. It seems to conflict with the hints that she is someone suffering from substance use.
She has weekly conversations with her mother, an abusive and very mentally ill woman, and she can hear her ‘mummy’s’ (who is called ‘the pretty face of evil) voice in her head when she encounters something undignified. She is harshly critical of others, but does not notice her own faults (she always points out Raymond’s poor fashion, but her own clothes are ill fitting and outdated).
Eleanor is not stupid, and she seems rather progressive. So it doesn’t make sense that she would so readily look down on her peers. I occasionally got whiplash because at some points, she simply does not understand humans (even the most basic human interactions and pop culture references). Then at other other times she understands humans very well, at least well enough to critique them for being idiots and beneath her.
My biggest problem is the final part of the story. The book makes a massive tone shift in the final chapters. I was initially really put off by it, but after a few weeks, I think it was a good way to show that her issues have finally reached a point where she can no longer pretend that they don’t exist. Eleanor spends the end of the book recovering from her circumstances, and she is able to move forward with a full understanding of her life.
I loved the themes presented in the novel, but unlike Little Universes or the Alice Network, books that show mental illness and trauma in loving and compassionate ways, I don’t think Honeyman was able to successfully do the same. It was a great writing technique to let certain details about Eleanor’s past slip out, especially to convey that she is actively repressing her memories and that she’s an unreliable narrator, but Eleanor deserved so much more than the “she was crazy the whole time” trope. That REALLY disappointed me. That was by far my biggest gripe with this book.
Furthermore, I have to say that according to several articles like this one by Shona Craven, Gail Honeyman did not properly research Social Services, trauma, and mental illness. Because this book is so new (published in 2017), I believe that authors have to be more responsible when writing about topics like foster care. These subjects and people who experience and deal with these subjects already have to overcome stigma and lack of understanding, and continuing harmful stereotypes does not help.
In conclusion, I feel like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine could have been amazing and has some great moments, but Honeyman’s overall irresponsibility definitely hindered this book’s potential.
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (maybe 2.5 stars??)
TW: Mental illness, Graphic violence, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Sexual Assault, Fatphobia, Death, Suicide, Trauma
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