Before reading Eleanor by Jason Gurley, I knew that the description noted that the novel was science-fiction. As I started reading, I sort of lost the idea that the novel was a sci-fi/fantasy novel, and just got lost in the novel. The novel is the perfect mixture of realistic and fantasy. With believable thoughts and feelings, with some supernatural happenings.
The novel is broken down into several parts, from several viewpoints, during multiple time periods. I know you're thinking that sounds way too confusing and isn't worth the read, but you are wrong! The first few sections of the novel read like a traditional-type tragic family story. Then it jumped somewhere completely different.
The main character, Eleanor (obviously), is being pulled from her own world, "the real world," to other places- some are beautiful, and some are terrible. As she begins to be pulled to these other worlds more and more often, she must figure out what and why it is happening.
One of the things I really appreciate about the novel is that there aren't too many characters. When there are too many characters, especially main characters, involved, it confuses the story line. This isn't the case with Eleanor. It is well-written, and while it has several factors that could make it confusing, it just isn't confusing.
My main complaint with the novel is that sometimes the subject-verb agreement is incorrect. I know that sounds very grammatical, but those little instances bothered me. It only happen 3-5 times throughout the entire book, but it bothered me either way.
I also appreciated the ending. It wrapped everything up nicely, and while I think a sequel could be written, I don't believe it is at all necessary.
I highly recommend this book if you're interested in science-fiction/fantasy novels. For more information on this novel and its author, you can check out the Penguin Random House website here.








I received this novel from Blogging for Books for this review.