“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've heard amazing things about this book and it was on my reading list for a while before I bought it. The things is - I actually held it in my arms in the store but I didn't recognize what it was. It's a translation and the title doesn't mention Eleanor anywhere; it's actually "I'm Completely Fine Now". So, it just didn't click that this was the book I wanted. Also, the pretty cover with the flamingos did not fit the idea I had about the novel. Anyway, I saw the photo of it on the publisher's Instagram and then couldn't wait to go to the bookstore to buy it.
“Time only blunts the pain of loss. It doesn’t erase it.”
Even then, it took me a while to start reading it. Yeah, I suppose it was a bit of fear, the book was so hyped I was afraid I would hate it. But when I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. The book is divided into three uneven sections - 'Good Days', 'Bad Days' and 'Better Days'. Basically, delusion, facing reality and healing. I really liked that.
“Some people, weak people, fear solitude. What they fail to understand is that you don't need anyone, you can take care of yourself.”
Eleanor is a socially incompetent, judgmental and deeply scarred woman who drinks two bottles of vodka every weekend, eats pizza and has a phone call with her Mummy every Wednesday. She has no friends and feels she does not need them because people are so weird and do everything wrong. According to her, at least.
“I do exist, don’t I? It often feels as if I’m not here, that I’m a figment of my own imagination. There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock.”
This story had me laughing, crying, getting into murderous rage and cringing. Dear god, I cringed so much because I couldn't help feeling like I was in Eleanor's shoes. But I liked the development of the story and how we discovered things piece by piece, I liked how we were misled from the beginning. It truly felt like being in Eleanor's head - as she was also pushing the past away and fooling herself, living an illusion in order to feel better.
“I 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.”
I really liked Raymond, the IT guy in the company El works at, as well as Sammy, the kindly old man they save. Well, can't forget Ray's mother either. These people are crucial in Eleanor's opening up to the world, and realizing that things are not as she always thought them to be. Another person that is important in her decision to change is the musician (whose name I forgot) she "falls in love with". In order to attract his attention, she participates in different beautification rituals she feels she should participate in because she's a female of the species - like waxing, putting on make up, cutting and coloring her hair... She basically stalks him and convinces herself that they are soulmates and will definitely be together. This is one of the signs that she is definitely not completely fine.
“Thank you for making me shiny.”
(This made me cry. Read. You'll understand.)
I hate, hate, hate her Mommy, by the way. Everything she told her made my skin crawl and I felt so uncomfortable with their relationship. When all was revealed by the end I was relieved but also even more disturbed when I looked back at some of the things that happened or were said. She ingrained such harmful thoughts into Eleanor I sometimes just stared at the page in disbelief.
“You grew inside me, your teeth and your tongue and your cervix are all made from my cells, my genes. Who knows what little surprises I left growing inside there for you, which codes I set running. Breast cancer? Alzheimer’s?”
In the end, her decision to finally confront the demons of her past and live is so satisfying. The decision to begin to heal live a life that is better than fine. This books stayed with me for a long time, and even now I cannot think about it without a lot of feelings taking over me. It is definitely a book I would recommend. And definitely one I need to be the English version of. :)
P.S. Reese Witherspoon's company is making an Eleanor Oliphant movie. I'm so excited for it.
“In the end, what matters is this: I survived.”
