This novel is told in the first person from the perspective from Eleanor Oliphant.
As you start to read, you don't know what to make of this woman who is really strange. Eleanor tells us that she works in an office, sorting out the financial side of a graphic design company. Something is the matter with Eleanor, and little by little we discover that something happened to her, which she calls the incident and that incident, which she doesn't remember and has decided not to know about, involves her mother, who is institutionalized and she calls every week. I think the mother is probably in a penal mental centre or something like that. We also discover that Eleanor has had problems growing up as she was moved from foster home to foster home until she was first sent to a social home and then she was given her flat when she went to university. Eleanor is not stupid; she uses formal language and words that are not common, which makes her peculiar, and her colleagues mock her, and she knows.
When Eleanor wins two tickets in the office raffle for a concert, she asks her colleague Billy to go with him. At the concert she sees a singer called Johnnie Lommond on stage, and she feels this is the man of her life. He is very handsome and sings well, and she leaves Billy there as she starts planning how to make it possible for her and Johnny to become an item. I have forgotten to say that Eleanor's face is covered in scars, which I imagine come from the incident.
Eleanor decides to buy herself a computer so that she can follow Johnny on social media. One of her colleagues tell her that her brother used to go to school with Johnny but they lost contact. This is something that Eleanor thinks is going to happen.
When her computer at work stops working, she calls the IT guy, who is new. His name is Raymond Gibbons. From that moment, life throws Raymond and Eleanor together. The next day after he fixes the computer, he walks outside the office with her, which Eleanor dislikes, especially as Raymond smokes. Then they see an old man fall, and Raymond runs to help him. He calls the ambulance and Eleanor is told to keep talking to him. Raymond goes with the man in the ambulance and Eleanor picks up the food the man was carrying, and she promises to go there later. Eleanor gets the visit of her social worker that evening, and then Raymond calls to tell her that she hasn't turned up. So she goes the next day and Raymond tells her that his name is Sammy. Eleanor stays for a bit, and then they go out, and Raymond tells her to have a drink with him and they do. All this narration is not so normal because every social situation is new for Eleanor and she behaves really weirdly, but she thinks that the people who have no social skills are the others.
The next day she visits Sammy and Raymond is there too, and the man is thankful for what they did. Once again Eleanor's response is peculiar. Then when they leave, he tells her that he is visiting his mother and asks her if she wants to come, and Eleanor thinks t hat it could be a good practice for when she has to meet Johnny's parents. So she goes there.
Eleanor's situation is quite sad and we can tells that she longs to be loved. When Sammy holds her hand, she becomes emotional because she feels the warmths she lacks. And with Raymond's mother she also feels emotional.
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