Fiction

Audiobook: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

December 25, 2025

When leaving my Review on Amazon, I was reminded that I purchased the Audiobook originally in 2018. That highlights, that there is always a chance of me getting to a book eventually 🙂

Synopsis:

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive – but not how to live

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.

Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.

One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – while searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life.

Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than… fine?

Review:

This was an emotional rollercoaster for sure.

We meet Eleanor, who isn’t that interested in interacting with others and considered more of a social outcast. She is quick to judge other, avoids social interactions of possible and is happy in her own little bubble. We quickly learn that she did not have an easy life and is dealing with a lot of things, that leave marks and heavily influenced her life and the person she is today.

When she meets Raymond and both help an elderly man after he fells, Eleanors life starts to change drastically. It doesn’t come easy, and she fights initially very hard to keep her life as is. Bit by bit we learn more and more about her and notice the shift in her perception, personality and simply how she sees the world and interacts with the people around her.

It’s a story of personal growth, friendship and accepting, that we can become a different (and sometimes better) version of ourselves if we allow it to happen and it won’t be easy. It starts with small changes that can become so much more if we allow it.

I enjoyed this one a lot and the friendship that happened that these two unlike characters built. I wanted to give Eleanor a hug multiple times and felt so happy when she noticed all these little things contributing to her character growth. Absolutely one that I would ask everyone to read / listen to. A story that you’ll remember for a long time.

If you are fine with a British accent, listen to this as an Audiobook. At the end you’ll get rewarded with a short 10min talk between the narrator and the author, which added a bit of context also.

🌙 Recension: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
📚 Genre: Fiction
📅 Release Date: May 9, 2017
📖 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
📗 available in various formats
📱 Read as: Audiobook
💸 Bought
🗣️ Language: English
📆 Listening Length: 11h36min
⭐️ 5/5