Calling all fans of Eleanor Oliphant

This is not a review of Eleanor Oliphant..

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is my “go to” book recommendation for those wanting to get back into reading. This is an easy recommendation for me to make because it is such a great book. It is definitely in my top 10 of all time. It is also my most sold book via Matilda’s Room (www.matildasroom.nz).

My sister in law called this the best book she has ever read. My bestie said it was such a good book, and my other friend, who also happens to be a Judge, finished it in a matter of days and loved it. Not everyone loves it in this way, but I can almost categorically recommend this one to people. It was published in 2017 and remains in the Whitcoulls Top 100.

Eleanor Oliphant is such a different and quirky character. From her interactions, you can quickly tell that Eleanor is socially awkward. But this review is not a review of Eleanor Oliphant. This is a review of books which gave me distinct Eleanor Oliphant vibes, largely because of the protagonists.

Let me introduce you to The Maid by Nita Prose. I don’t think this book is in the same league as Eleanor in that this recommendation may be a little controversial. I have seen mixed reviews about this book online, some saying it is overhyped. Now when I read this book earlier in the year, I knew absolutely nothing about it, and had not even heard of it. I just happened to pick it up and give it a go. Very unlike me! I think when you come into a book with no preconceived ideas about it, and no expectations sometimes it is better. Maybe even in recommending books, I am setting people up for disappointment?!

I also read this one straight after a book which I didn’t like very much, so it could also be a timing thing. But in any case, I could not put this book down, and I enjoyed it enough to recommend it to you!

The main character in this book is Molly Gray. She struggles with social skills and misreads social cues. She is a cleaner in a hotel and she has great attention to detail, loves cleaning “properly” and following rules. This makes her perfect at her job. Everything is going relatively well for Molly until one day she enters a room and finds the guest dead in his bed. She finds herself caught up in the mess (see what I did there?) and becomes the lead suspect in the case.

This is currently sitting at 3.8/5 on GoodReads which is much lower than my usual recommendations, but it did win the GoodReads 2022 Mystery/Thriller book of the year, which I think is completely justified. If you want some page turning goodness with a quirky and delightful main character, give this one a go. Let me know what you think!

Next up we have Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. This was published in March 2023 so is a fairly recent release. This is the first book I have read by Nugent.

The GoodReads synopsis of this book reads “Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died. Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say. But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again….”

This book is a dark, psychological thriller. It is twisty, and unputdownable. It does cover some pretty intense themes. It is always so hard to warn people about some of the dark themes without giving away the plot twists… so I will leave it to you to look into these if you know you need to.

I really fell in love with Sally and I wanted her to succeed. I think the author developed the Sally character really well, while also being sensitive to mental health. Bonus side note – some of this book is set in New Zealand which I enjoyed. Just putting it out there now, but I think this book will be the GoodReads 2023 Mystery/Thriller book of the year. Time will tell!

I read this one in a day because it was that good – I couldn’t wait to see how it was all going to unfold. There were twists and turns throughout the book that kept me hooked. I highly recommend adding this one to your TBR because life is too short to read bad books.