Book 19: Eleanor Oliphant is Completeely Fine by Gail Honeyman

-





Format:  Paperback
Date Started:  April 12, 2019
Date Finished:  April 17, 2019

It's my first non-digital book of the year!

I went into this book expecting a "incredibly funny" book as promised by the cover of my edition and several pages worth of review blurbs.  And while our narrator, Eleanor, and her way of interacting with the world was awkward and humorous, it never left my mind that it was born from an incredible trauma and tragedy. I'm pretty hip at picking up the clues that author's are throwing down, so I figured that something terrible had happened and was probably still coming for Eleanor.

I was right, and it was hard to read.  Thankfully, the little gem of a guy who is Raymond was there.  We all need a Raymond. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Please use good manners and judgement when commenting. We're all readers together.

Popular posts from this blog

Book 14: Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan

-
Image
Format:  Kindle Date Started:  March 19, 2019 Date Finished:  March 25, 2019 It looked like it was going to check all the boxes for me:  Paris, a mystery, books.  And then, it failed to deliver in any meaningful way. Paris is such a rich and wonderful place, full of quirks and customs, beauty and ugliness.  Instead of being a major character, Paris was glossed over.  For all of the narrator's rhapsodizing about the city, she operates as if it doesn't exist.  Her daughters live, love, and thrive in Paris, so I really wish we could have heard from them.  Hearing about what high school is like in Paris would have been better than whining and pining in a bookstore.  Heck, reading a list of books available for purchase in the bookshop would have been better than listening to the narrator moaning about her husband. I didn't finish the last half of the book because, at that point, it became painfully clear that I wasn't going to g...
Read more

"Brown Girl Dreaming" by Jacqueline Woodson

-
Image
To be honest, poetry isn't the first genre I reach for. But, I find that the current state of global affairs makes me want to reach out beyond what I know and yearn to learn about people who aren't like me. I don't want to escape into fantasy, I want to know how other people lived/are living/handled/are handling life. After several high profile recommendations (Thank you, Mrs. Obama), I selected the audio book version of Jacqueline Woodson's incredibly beautiful autobiography. I know, I know -- almost all of the positive reviews use the word 'beautiful.' Because it is. It is beautiful and dreamy, evocative of particular places and times in her life. She captures the sudden and often mysterious ways in which a child's life changes with the language available to her at that age. What made it a special treat for me is that the author narrates the audio book which means her inflection, pauses, and pronunciation cause the story to come to life ...
Read more

2019 Book 7: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

-
Image
Format:  Kindle Date started:  February 4, 2019 Date Finished:  February 9,2019 A quick glance at Goodreads proves that I'm of the minority opinion on this book - it was not good.  The building blocks of a great book were there - unreliable narrators, a murder mystery, and shifting points of view -- but I think it was the time loop that sunk the ship so to speak.  A-hahaha -- alliteration!  :)  Just when I found myself beginning to grasp into which body Aidan Bishop had currently been thrust, he switched hosts again.  I can see where this is a compelling plot device, but I quickly gave up even trying to keep track of who Bishop was, who he'd already been, and who he was going to be.  It was too, too much, and because it was too much I found that I didn't really care about where the story was going or who killed Evelyn Hardcastle 7 1/2 times or even why they did it. 
Read more