The manner in which Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was written, I cannot relegate her to a mere character from a book. She is someone we know, and she is a part of the person who stares back at us from the mirror. As time progresses, as Raymond eloquently puts it, they are pals! And Raymond is a true friend in the support he offers Eleanor as she comes out of her shell.Įleanor could be any one of us. Eleanor can’t seem to shake him off and despite her initial prejudices she grows to like his company. Raymond is that one person who has tagged along with her. It is ironic that at the beginning where she decides to “improve herself from the outside and work her way in”, and she finally ends up healing herself from the inside out.

Eventually realising that she needs to heal. Her horizons expand and she finds herself open to friendships, attending parties, and even enjoying shopping. And with the help of Raymond, she makes her way through the hoops that are society’s rules. Eleanor, who has heretofore not encountered a situation demanding she show empathy, tries her best to be helpful.

And then together they help Sammy, an old man who faints in the middle of the road. It is through an accident of fate that Eleanor comes to know of Raymond, the tech support from work.

She is completely fine in her own world and in her own scarred skin.Įleanor’s scars are not just skin deep as we come to know through the course of the book. She has been at the same job for close to a decade, and yet she has no interest in the office gossip or its politics. She has vodka and pizza on weekends, a talk with her mummy every Wednesday, everything has its place and time. This has been achieved with orderliness and routine. She wants order and stability in her life. Eleanor is a simple person, she really is. There were times when I really did laugh out loud. There were times when I loved Eleanor to bits, she would have been a great person to know IRL. There were times when I was wondering where are we going with this. It was such a delightful read and nothing at all what I expected it to be. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is a book that smashed a few of my expectations. A thriller means at least a few nail-biting pages. If you pick up a romance, you expect sappiness or mush. And because of these considerations, you definitely have a certain expectation of the book. When you pick up a book, there are a dozen things that you consider before you actually decide to read it.

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