Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant is an endearing and funny character, rich of nuances, perfectly tridimensional. Her first-person account of life with trauma and mental health issues is so believable that one can really walk in her - most uncomfortable - shoes and understand something important about human nature, loneliness and even the mechanisms that push a person to the edge. This is the main reason why the novel narrowly escaped my "Brain Chewingum" shelf.
Don't get me wrong, I immensely enjoyed the novel, its humour and its levity. Maybe, though, there is a bit too much of the levity for the conclusion to ring authentic. All characters end up being generous, helpful, or at least nice enough to stop bullying Eleanor as soon as she changes haircut and shoes. The boss is understanding, the family of the old man that she and her new friend help is compact in their gratitude and acceptance, her friend Raymond is himself a paragon of patience. Honestly, it is all a bit too much strawberries and cream for the terrible topics of neglect, childhood abuse, loneliness, alcohol abuse, and heavy mental health problems that the novel depicts so well, drily and without melodrama.
That's why that fourth star remains in my pockets. This said, when I think about it, I do have people like Raymond and the other loving, sweet characters in my life, and I am most grateful for it. I also see how Gail Honeyman (what an apt and lovely name!) wanted to depict the dire cinsequences of loneliness and isolation, and the healing quality of connections. Just, she did it with a bit of a heavy hand, and this ended up forcing the plot towards a scarcely believable happy ending, given the premises. I wish life were that easy to mend. Anyway, she is good enough at writing likeable characters to make me happy that they ended up in a good place, no matter how much disbelief I had to suspend to make it happen. Thanks the Muse, she avoided going either full-fledged chick lit romance nor cheap thriller. For that, I am very grateful.… (more)