Saturday 29 December 2018

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

Amazon link

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Brilliant! 

I absolutely adore Eleanor Oliphant. This is a beautifully-written book: honest, insightful, and humorous, and the voice of Eleanor Oliphant is one of the best characterisations I've read for a long time.

This is a novel about loneliness, and the devastating isolation which can occur both alone and in a crowd, and which, as this novel explores, can be internalised through deliberately negative human actions as much as through circumstance. Leaving aside the occasional hint of didacticism on occasion, the novel explores the necessity of human kindness and meaningful human contact for instilling a sense of self-worth as well as day-to-day survival with poignancy and humour, creating an intense story of cruelty, tragedy, and survival, which is also laugh-out-loud funny alot of the time. Eleanor's voice - her quirky, aspergic logic, and her intense social anxiety, balanced against her need for love, kindness, and acceptance - shines all the way through this wonderful novel. I absolutely adore her.

Sunday 16 December 2018


Have you heard the news...?



Witherstone is to be published by UCLan Publishing

This fab indie publishing house has such illustrious books as
Cold Bath Street by A. J. Hartley, nominated for the CILIP Carnegie and the Kate Greenaway Children's Book awards, on their list so to be joining this prestigious publishing house is mind-blowingly exciting! Woo-hoooooo!