An audio book.
The first-person narrator is 30 with a lowly office job. In a slow reveal we learn that her mother's inside for starting a fire that scarred one side of Eleanor's face. She doesn't know her father. She was raised by various foster parents, has a good degree in classics, lived when a student for 2 years with a man who was violent to her.
She's says she's happy alone. She likes cryptic crosswords. She's socially awkward. Office colleagues openly make fun of her. Her lifestyle is solitary and routine - 2 bottles of vodka per weekend. She stockpiles painkillers. But things suddenly change. She sees at a pub gig the man who she thinks is "the one" and smartens herself up for him. She finds out where he lives, follows him online. A new IT worker Raymond tries to befriend her. They save an old man, Sammy, who collapsed on the street, visit him in hospital and get know his family. Raymond invites her to visit his mother. She finds she rather likes families. Sammy dies. Raymond and Eleanor go to the funeral together.
But all the while she's been smartening herself up for the next gig where the singer will fall in love with her as first sight. He doesn't, and she's killing herself in her flat when Raymond saves her. She goes to therapy during which she realises she had a sister. An internet search reveals a final twist about her mother.
Some episodes seem over-long. For example, the therapy session has lots of Eleanor's musings. I suspect the idea is that Eleanor's musings later in the book are different to the earlier ones - she's beginning to care about others - so the musings matter. I thought her behaviour issues might not have been innate but she keeps saying she's always been considered odd.
Given the unreliability of the narrator it's not surprising that data's withheld, though sometimes the reason seems much more to do with storytelling contrivance than psychological accuracy.
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