I loved this book. Completely different than I expected, but in a refreshing way. I hate reading reviews that give everything away, so as a heads up, there are no spoilers here.For whatever reason, even amidst all the rave reviews, I thought the book might be odd or boring; a whole book about a quirky woman, I thought how could this be so wonderful? However, it is so much more than that. It has in depth portrayal of a woman and her past and how she has come to be who she is. It details her struggles with a hurtful past, and as the story develops, so does our heroine. She begins to look at things in a new light, and grows into this beautiful strong and brave person. You want to applaud her in the end and give her a hug.This is an intelligent and beautifully written story, a definite page turner. I highly recommend.

I am going to leave the description of the plot to other reviews and simply encourage people to consider this lovely novel for their summer reading although it is decidedly not a traditional beach book.This book joins a long list of recent novels where our not-so-likeable protagonist in the beginning of the novel is going to turn out completely fine in the end. Surely the reader could not be blamed for jumping to conclusions here, with the prompt to do so right in the title. And it is good thing that our Eleanor gets right to it because some of her story, both in the past and present, is woven of such deep tragedy the reader is tempted to jump ahead to where everything is indeed fine. But don't. The writing in this book is like butter and there are manycomic gems sprinkled throughout the narration, some of them laugh out funny. They glide the reader through many cringe worthy moments to ultimate victory for a wounded person who climbs her way out of hell with the support of people who surround all of us if we open ourselves up a small bit. Almost 5 stars. ###

This is a book club review, with very little summary of the book itself. Our book club read this book as our February book club. Our book club rates books on readability, likability, quality, and of course, discussion merit. Eleanor Oliphant ended up being in our top favorite book club reads of all time, hence the five star rating.Eleanor Oliphant is a dark comedy about a woman's journey into finding her path, to opening up, and to facing her emotions/head/past. It's difficult to give a summary of this book that does not include spoilers, which I believe could take away from the beauty of this book. However, due to the dark nature of this book, there may be triggers here for some readers (please see very bottom note with spoiler triggers).As a book club read, this book rated very high, an 8 of out 10, because of the amount of discussion that came from it. We were truly invested in this discussion - members shed tears, laughed, hugged... it was a wonderful book to discuss. We talked for hours and hours, and eventually ran out of time. We rarely have so much discussion with books that is so deep and meaningful. And everyone agreed that the book was likable despite the dark subject matter. The book is so incredibly funny and sweet, that it makes the hard topics just a bit easier. As far as quality, the book is far from flawless. Individual ratings were the book in general were about a 6, so a bit lower. But as far as a book club selection, the book was a great deal of fun and very worthy of a group discussion.The book takes place in Scotland, which made for a fun and lively theme, and a Scottish potluck. This book, surprisingly, has a LOT of food mentions, so there was plenty of recipes to select from. Everyone enjoyed eating the foods that Eleanor and the other characters mention in the book.Overall, this book is recommended for book clubs!***SPOILER TRIGGER WARNINGS*** I so often get asked for triggers, I just share these for book club reviews now. After all, what may be fine for the individual reader is not always great in a book club/group discussion. But, of course, triggers are also spoilers, so please do not read on if you do not want that. I will also add the disclaimer that none of these triggers were an issue for our book club, and no one had any problems with the subject matter. We include these strictly as a warning for other book clubs. Topics included: Childhood abuse and trauma, murder, death, suicide topics, alcoholism, and mental health issues.

I did come to like and sympathise with Eleanor and the other characters in the book; but I found it a bit of a fairy tale and I wasn't entirely convinced. The story of Eleanor's coming to grips with her traumatising past, and overcoming it, seemed a bit too pat and simplistic. It is well written, and I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy reading it, but it is not the type of book I would normally choose.

I really don't understand the hype behind this book. The ending was predictable. The characters didn't progress in a way that really drew me in. And the pseudo-intellectual internal dialogue was tiring at best. I thought I would form more of an attachment to this character (given her childhood, circumstances, and emotional issues) but it was just the opposite. I found myself reading it quickly, hoping that there would be a new twist that would draw me in... nope. By page 200, I stopped hoping for something to draw me and and started speed-reading just to get it over with. Disappointing.