I had almost bought this book last Christmas, however, I’m a tight arse and if books are what I consider ‘expensive’ on Amazon, I add them to my Kindle Wishlist and wait for the price to go down before I buy them. Ergo, I got this a couple of weeks ago when it was reduced to 99p; bargain!

Not a lot of my friends are big book worms like me, so when I had seen this book batted around Facebook quite a bit being recommended by everybody I had high hopes. I had also seen that it won book of the year, the Sunday Times Bestseller and some Costa award too; probably amongst many others. Therefore, my expectations were pretty high. I did however, make the mistake of thinking it was a young adult book; which it’s not, therefore wasn’t expecting it to be written the way that it was. I also had no actual idea what the book was about so that was quite interesting. But here it goes…

Eleanor Oliphant is a socially awkward 29 year old who lives a simple life following a weekly routine; she goes to work every week day as finance , eats a sandwich meal deal for her lunch whilst completing the crossword, then goes home to make a pesto pasta for tea, on a weekend she stays in the house and drinks two bottles of vodka. She has no friends and her only visitors are the man who reads the gas meter and her social worker who visits twice per year.

However, two events occur which throw Eleanor’s life into a spin. Firstly, she sees ‘the musician’ playing a concert and falls instantly in love with him, planning their life out in her mind. Secondly, she witnesses an old man fall over when crossing the street with a work colleague and is encouraged to help him. These events push Eleanor to interact in ways she never has; going to parties, visiting in hospital and going to pubs, and learn new things about herself.

Honeyman has written the book in such an intriguing way. You only get glimpses into Eleanor’s past and I even gasped out loud near the end as there was a twist I totally didn’t see coming. I really enjoy a realistic novel and that is exactly what it was. It was worth the hype, even though it wasn’t what I was expecting at all. It also serves as a nice little reminder to take some chances in life.