I really liked this book, and read it fairly quickly, although as some readers point out, it does have questionable inconsistencies. I didn’t really notice them while I was reading though, as I felt engrossed in the character’s viewpoint, interested to find out what had happened to her, and what her future would turn into. Rather like in Convenience Store Woman, the main character here is an eccentric who doesn’t fit into social norms. The comparison ends there, though. While I felt pretty sure that Keiko Furukura was autistic, this story is written as if the character’s oddities are due to her upbringing. I’m not sure if the author meant for her to have a mental illness or cognitive difference that her misfortunes exacerbated, or if she was suggesting that trauma was the main cause. Simply put: Eleanor is odd. She speaks formally, has rigid habits, avoids social gatherings, has huge gaps in her understanding of popular culture, and doesn’t recognize when others are making jokes at her expense. She’s fairly good at her office job and keeps telling herself that everything is just fine.
But it’s not. Eleanor is avoiding thinking about her painful past- and doesn’t want to discuss it when others bring things up or ask questions. She only happens to meet her co-worker Raymond from IT when he comes to fix her computer one day, and by chance they’re both outside when an elderly man collapses on the street and needs emergency assistance. They help the stranger, visit him in the hospital together, later start meeting for lunch, gradually become friends- and things start to change in Eleanor’s life. She wants to learn how to fit in, to maintain a facade of normalcy if she can, but her attempts are often downright funny and awkward. And her stress and fear when memories of the past arise, make the reader very sad. I’m glad this book didn’t dwell on the horrific incidents of her childhood. Too many stories about abused children go into a lot of detail that’s difficult to read. This story instead, is about what happened to an adult who survived, how it affected her adult life, and how she tried to change things, with the help of some kind people who looked past her weirdness and turned out to be good friends.
It moves really quickly through some aspects of her recovery, and I wouldn’t have minded the story being longer to give that more of a proper timeframe. I did think the whole scenario of Eleanor fixating on a performing musician as a love interest who would solve all her problems, very strange. It didn’t make sense to me until much later in the book, why she would have that kind of unrealistic, almost obsessive crush on a stranger. On the other hand, I really loved the inclusion of a cat in the story, who shows up near the end. It made me smile so much.
Borrowed from the public library.