Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

by Gail Honeyman

Monday takes a long time to come around.

I am her when I read this line.

Life should be about trying new things, exploring boundaries,

I feel sorry for beautiful people. Beauty, from the moment you possess it, is already slipping away, ephemeral. That must be difficult. Always having to prove that there’s more to you, wanting people to see beneath the surface, to be loved for yourself, and not your stunning body, sparkling eyes or thick, lustrous hair.

There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they’re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope.

have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.

People don’t like these facts, but I can’t help that. If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.

I feel you

‘When you read about “monsters”,’ I said, ‘household names … you forget they had families. They don’t just spring from nowhere. You never think about the people that are left behind to deal with the aftermath of it all.’