Good book, but not great. I emotionally connected with Liz, a frumperific, lonely thirty-something and I adored her son just as she did. However, I felt that the last fifth of the book kind of took a left turn and I felt like while it made the book come fullcircle, it also lessened it. I don't quite know how to explain it without spoiling the ending, but it just felt contrived. Don't get me wrong, I liked the ending, but that's also the reason why I don't like it. That doesn't make sense, but there you go. ( )

This book is awesome. It's become one of my favorites, and I've only read it once, so this is a big deal. In fact, the book is so awesome, and I am so awe-struck by it, that I cannot even review it, as my review would simply contain my gushing about how much I love this book, how much I am like Liz Dunn, how amazing Coupland's understanding of and ability to convey loneliness is, how often the book made me laugh or made me commiserate or made me go, "That's me." No, a review would do n...more This book is awesome. It's become one of my favorites, and I've only read it once, so this is a big deal. In fact, the book is so awesome, and I am so awe-struck by it, that I cannot even review it, as my review would simply contain my gushing about how much I love this book, how much I am like Liz Dunn, how amazing Coupland's understanding of and ability to convey loneliness is, how often the book made me laugh or made me commiserate or made me go, "That's me." No, a review would do no real good, so I am simply going to say that this book is amazing, and if you enjoy well-written, humorous fiction, with a narrator who becomes your best friend, with a plot that vivifies and inspires, then pick up this book immediately. ( )

Gifted to me by my particularly prolific bad blogger friend Rhinoa, this was my first experience of Douglas Coupland.

Eleanor Rigby is a novel about loneliness. And by that I am referring to both meanings of the word. Liz Dunn is alone; a forty-something woman who lives alone, with no friends and has never had a romantic relationship. Everything changes when Liz receives a call from a hospital informing her that her son has been admitted.

Liz finds herself building a relationship with her long-lost son, Jeremy, who is afflicted with severe multiple sclerosis and having to adapt to no longer living alone. Jeremy is quite an enigma. His illness causes him to have visions, that are sometimes beautiful and sometimes quite terrifying. But his free and enigmatic outlook on life, and death, is refreshing and lighthearted, and ultimately liberating for the repressed and lonely Liz.

The title is an obvious homage to the Beatles song, but while it is about loneliness, it is also about rediscovering oneself and learning to grasp life and not let it pass you by. While sad and bittersweet, Eleanor Rigby is also witty and warm and never becomes depressing or morose. As someone to is not a stranger to loneliness or depression, Eleanor Rigby was particularly meaningful to me and I was quickly won over with Coupland's entertaining prose and smart dialogue.

A lovely story, I cannot recommend this enough!

Knowing the book title explains the book. For me, it just took too long to get to the point. ( )

first line: "I had always thought that a person born blind and given sight later on in life through the miracles of modern medicine would feel reborn."

"Look at all the lonely people." Loneliness is definitely a prominent theme of this book: the experience of loneliness; the ways we cloak it; why and how we overcome it. It sounds like a real downer, but it's got some wonderful imagery and humor. One of my favorite quotes:

"the gas station...employees were the handsomest men any of us had ever seen, sculpted from gold, and with voices like songs. And there they were, in a gas station in the middle of nowhere, going to waste. They ought to have been perched on jagged lava cliffs having their hearts ripped out as sacrifices to the gods." ( )