Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Pamela Dorman Books, 336 pages, $26

This is not a mystery, although a crime is revealed at the end.

Eleanor Oliphant is captivatingly odd. She appears robotic, autistic, compulsive, unsociable, judgmental. She is thirty years old, has been a bookkeeper at a design company ever since graduating from university, and has no friends. She talks to her mother every Wednesday. Those conversations are never pleasant. It’s clear that her mother is judgmental, too, but with a vicious undertone. Eleanor tells her mother that she is fine. Fine, fine, fine. The book gradually reveals how Eleanor Oliphant (Miss) is not fine.

Gail Honeyman has crafted a sweet, bittersweet, sad, and poignant novel.