Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland

Where do all the lonely people come from? Coupland has an answer to the question from the Beatles song: from regular North Vancouver families. Liz Dunn knows what it's like to be lonely all the time. She is short and fat and has never had friends. Her life changes, however, when she gets a phone call from the hospital. Her name was the emergency contact on a young man's medic alert bracelet -- a man whose name she had never heard before. A sweet and funny story about finding one's place in the world.