Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: A Novel

of cruelty and paperwork to undo that just because you didn’t know you wouldn’t want it once you had it.” “Only drunk people talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” Seth said. I ignored him. This was who Seth was going to marry. But

but then her little girl came along, and her little girl’s daddy left, and before you knew it . . . she was one of them. The needy.

How could it be? he wondered. How could it be that you take extremely difficult, extremely healthy steps to get your life in order only to have the person you extracted yourself from more in charge of your happiness and well-being than she ever was?

while giving birth and how different she was now. She said, “Did you feel like an animal?” Cecelia considered this.