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Eileen
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The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors.
Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary da ...more
Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary da ...more
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Paperback, 260 pages
Published
August 16th 2016
by Penguin Books
(first published August 18th 2015)
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I couldn't be bothered to deal with fixing things. I preferred to wallow in the problem, dream of better days.
this book takes place in the early sixties and is about a woman named eileen dunlop, a tightly wound and inwardly unstable twenty-four-year old woman who works at a juvenile correctional facility for boys and lives with her alcoholic father in a shambles of a house. it chronicles the events of one week in a frigid new england winter after which she will unexpectedly leave town, never to ...more
this book takes place in the early sixties and is about a woman named eileen dunlop, a tightly wound and inwardly unstable twenty-four-year old woman who works at a juvenile correctional facility for boys and lives with her alcoholic father in a shambles of a house. it chronicles the events of one week in a frigid new england winter after which she will unexpectedly leave town, never to ...more

Oct 24, 2016
Jaidee
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
those willing to see the darkness in women
Recommended to Jaidee by:
Esil
Shelves:
five-stars-books
5 "repugnant, vile, fierce, exhibitionistic" stars !!!
10th Favorite Read of 2016
I have never been so reluctant to give a book 5 stars.
This is a book that directs all its murky gaze on the darkness that lurks within women. Ms. Moshfegh slowly and repetitively dissects Eileen into all her gory parts from the darkness of her sexual fantasies that include post-pubescent boys, unattainable women, to visualizing her coworkers engaging in sex that both disgusts and titilates her. Eileen's psyche is ...more
10th Favorite Read of 2016
I have never been so reluctant to give a book 5 stars.
This is a book that directs all its murky gaze on the darkness that lurks within women. Ms. Moshfegh slowly and repetitively dissects Eileen into all her gory parts from the darkness of her sexual fantasies that include post-pubescent boys, unattainable women, to visualizing her coworkers engaging in sex that both disgusts and titilates her. Eileen's psyche is ...more

3.5 stars If you didn't like The Girl on the Train, you certainly won't like this. If you're interested in characters over plot, however, this is another solid entry into a excellent year for psychological thrillers.
Eileen is one of the most pitiable and despicable characters I've ever read; she is not only neurotically self-absorbed and insecure and suffering from severe sexual and emotional repression, but she's also prone to feverishly obsessive behavior. She lewdly fixates on a muscular gua ...more
Eileen is one of the most pitiable and despicable characters I've ever read; she is not only neurotically self-absorbed and insecure and suffering from severe sexual and emotional repression, but she's also prone to feverishly obsessive behavior. She lewdly fixates on a muscular gua ...more

Ottessa Moshfegh’s debut novel Eileen sounded like a great and intriguing read. The 1960’s, a girl’s escape from a boring life in a small New England town, a mysterious crime – there are lots of interesting plot points going for this book, which will be released in August 2015.
Unfortunately, this does not necessarily translate to the writing. Don’t get me wrong, Eileen Dunlop is an interesting yet thoroughly unlikable character, and her insights into her life range from bland and depressive to c ...more
Unfortunately, this does not necessarily translate to the writing. Don’t get me wrong, Eileen Dunlop is an interesting yet thoroughly unlikable character, and her insights into her life range from bland and depressive to c ...more

SELF-LOATHING AS A FORM OF ART
In the past few years quite by chance I have come across a rich seam of female self-loathing in fiction. You might think that women writers would be all about positive tales of overcoming the bleakness, and I’m sure many are, but not in these books:
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino – the unnamed un-beautiful older sister spends her whole life hating everybody especially herself
A Day Off by Storm Jameson – the unnamed middle-aged alcoholic frump spends a day hating everybo ...more
In the past few years quite by chance I have come across a rich seam of female self-loathing in fiction. You might think that women writers would be all about positive tales of overcoming the bleakness, and I’m sure many are, but not in these books:
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino – the unnamed un-beautiful older sister spends her whole life hating everybody especially herself
A Day Off by Storm Jameson – the unnamed middle-aged alcoholic frump spends a day hating everybo ...more

Eileen is nothing like the upbeat sassy song of old, C'mon Eileen. Oh contraire. She is mind shackled and deeply disturbed.
Reminiscing, Eileen tells her story that begins from her early 20's, in a town she refers to as X-ville, in a nonchalant way, telling it like it is. The self loathing; the daydreaming of love and escape; the kleptomania; the lack of hygiene. A misfit haunted by self image issues -No doubt a result from her upbringing and her emotionally distant drunk dad and her dead mother ...more
Reminiscing, Eileen tells her story that begins from her early 20's, in a town she refers to as X-ville, in a nonchalant way, telling it like it is. The self loathing; the daydreaming of love and escape; the kleptomania; the lack of hygiene. A misfit haunted by self image issues -No doubt a result from her upbringing and her emotionally distant drunk dad and her dead mother ...more

UPDATE: Kindle $1.99 special today!!!!!!!! I listened to the audiobook --but others who 'read' it also gave this book high reviews. Its a book I'll never forget --but read 'many' reviews!!! --to see if its for you! I loved it!
Audiobook--
Eileen.....( LOOKING BACK at her life....when she was 24 years of age living in Massachusetts)....At the start of the story she tells us in a week - she will run away....
Plus we know Eileen has a menial secretary type job at a boys correctional residence.
AT AGE ...more
Audiobook--
Eileen.....( LOOKING BACK at her life....when she was 24 years of age living in Massachusetts)....At the start of the story she tells us in a week - she will run away....
Plus we know Eileen has a menial secretary type job at a boys correctional residence.
AT AGE ...more

Do not read Eileen if you don't like repulsive characters, if you're turned off by graphic descriptions of bodily smells and filth, or if you like your novels to be action packed. Do read Eileen if you like dark character studies and can stand to be strung along for most of a book before getting to the crux of what is being foreshadowed. Eileen -- the narrator -- looks back at a few days in 1964 when she was 24 years, and living a nasty life in a small town with her nasty father working at a nas
...more

"What if she could smell that I was menstruating, and that I hadn’t washed? What if she smelled it clear as day but didn’t say anything? How, then, would I know whether or not she’d smelled it, and how ought I act to pretend I didn’t know Rebecca smelled it?"
Welcome to the anxiety-ridden mind of Eileen.
Eileen lives in a perpetual fantasy. Her words, not mine. She will undoubtedly go down in herstory as one of the most memorable characters I have ever read.
This is an "inside the head of a damag ...more
Welcome to the anxiety-ridden mind of Eileen.
Eileen lives in a perpetual fantasy. Her words, not mine. She will undoubtedly go down in herstory as one of the most memorable characters I have ever read.
This is an "inside the head of a damag ...more

EILEEN did not work for me.....at all.
EILEEN Dunlap is a 24 year old disturbed young woman. She is unhappy, has atrocious nutrition, personal hygiene and lives like a pig. She has no self-worth, her thoughts for the most part are nasty and morbid and she is trapped in a forlorn life she detests with a passion.......until an 'inane' opportunity to make a change presents itself.
EILEEN has a stagnant, (almost nonexistent) plot that goes nowhere and a repulsive character analysis that seemed to go o
...more
Updated review, July 2018
This is a deadly, pointed book. I was a little afraid to re-read it, worried that it wouldn't live up to my memory. But it did.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world who loves this book and so I clutch onto it, rather preciously, and feel wounded when I hear vitriolic hatred towards it. I wondered, as I read this weirdly wonderful, obscenely honest little book for the second time, why people hate it so much. I feel like saying to them, in a Jack Nicholson v ...more
This is a deadly, pointed book. I was a little afraid to re-read it, worried that it wouldn't live up to my memory. But it did.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world who loves this book and so I clutch onto it, rather preciously, and feel wounded when I hear vitriolic hatred towards it. I wondered, as I read this weirdly wonderful, obscenely honest little book for the second time, why people hate it so much. I feel like saying to them, in a Jack Nicholson v ...more

Does a book need to be inoffensive in order for you to enjoy it?
It may seem an academic question at heart, but it's exactly the question you'll need to ask yourself before reading Ottessa Moshfegh's polarizing Eileen. If you like your narratives clean, or you want your lead to have unambiguous morality, or you demand a likeable character, then Eileen is unlikely the book for you. Of course, if you are letting those things hold you back then you'll miss a swath of excellent literature of which E ...more
It may seem an academic question at heart, but it's exactly the question you'll need to ask yourself before reading Ottessa Moshfegh's polarizing Eileen. If you like your narratives clean, or you want your lead to have unambiguous morality, or you demand a likeable character, then Eileen is unlikely the book for you. Of course, if you are letting those things hold you back then you'll miss a swath of excellent literature of which E ...more

Updated Review: December 23-27, 2017
I can't believe I didn't like this the first time I read it. Although I do remember enjoying the writing style but not being that impressed with the actual storyline—and I still stand by that opinion: the story isn't the most impressive part of this book. But I think Eileen is one of the most fascinating, confusing, and well constructed characters I've ever read about. It definitely helped to read her short story collection to get an even better idea of Moshfe ...more
I can't believe I didn't like this the first time I read it. Although I do remember enjoying the writing style but not being that impressed with the actual storyline—and I still stand by that opinion: the story isn't the most impressive part of this book. But I think Eileen is one of the most fascinating, confusing, and well constructed characters I've ever read about. It definitely helped to read her short story collection to get an even better idea of Moshfe ...more

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
When I saw David Sedaris had recommended Eileen as a must read - well . . . .
♪♫♫♪I came in to the library like a wreeeeecccckkkkkkiiiiiinnnnnng ball. ♪♫♫♪
Now that I’m finished? I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and simply read the synopsis because it TELLS. THE. ENTIRE.STINKING. STORY. Not even kidding. The only thing you’ll gain by reading the whole book rather than only the blurb are all of the up-close-and-personal des ...more
When I saw David Sedaris had recommended Eileen as a must read - well . . . .

♪♫♫♪I came in to the library like a wreeeeecccckkkkkkiiiiiinnnnnng ball. ♪♫♫♪
Now that I’m finished? I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and simply read the synopsis because it TELLS. THE. ENTIRE.STINKING. STORY. Not even kidding. The only thing you’ll gain by reading the whole book rather than only the blurb are all of the up-close-and-personal des ...more

ON SALE FOR $1.99 THIS WEEK! May 17, 2018...if you can prepare yourself for some disgusting self-care and a bizarre protagonist, the story will wow my fellow oddballs. If you prefer commercial fiction, then stick to Lee Child and Jodi Picoult... Ottessa is not your writer.
-----------------------------
Apparently, Im a total softie for a sociopathic narrator. When the person whispering in my ear is pathologically self-absorbed, that lovely and hideous freak usually has me wrapped around his little ...more
-----------------------------
Apparently, Im a total softie for a sociopathic narrator. When the person whispering in my ear is pathologically self-absorbed, that lovely and hideous freak usually has me wrapped around his little ...more

If you enjoy reading extensive accounts of bowel movements from characters that love to wallow in self-pity, then this so-called "literary thriller" is the book for you. I'm afraid I didn't care for it very much.
The narrator is looking back on a seminal week in her life as a 24-year-old. Growing up in a drab New England town she dubs X-ville, Eileen leads a miserable existence. She lives in a filthy house with her alcoholic father, who insults her at every opportunity. She has major body issues. ...more
The narrator is looking back on a seminal week in her life as a 24-year-old. Growing up in a drab New England town she dubs X-ville, Eileen leads a miserable existence. She lives in a filthy house with her alcoholic father, who insults her at every opportunity. She has major body issues. ...more

Dear Eileen,
I wanted you to know that I didn’t fall in love with Eleanor Oliphant as half of the world did. I didn’t believe her story. I didn’t believe her damn tropical plant in the corner of her living room! I just didn’t.
But you, Eileen, I felt you were so real, so human and your story really blew my mind. What a thought provoking story you had to tell. I didn’t think you were weird, I just thought you were very clever by trusting me to be clever as well. Thank you, Eileen. For everything. ...more
I wanted you to know that I didn’t fall in love with Eleanor Oliphant as half of the world did. I didn’t believe her story. I didn’t believe her damn tropical plant in the corner of her living room! I just didn’t.
But you, Eileen, I felt you were so real, so human and your story really blew my mind. What a thought provoking story you had to tell. I didn’t think you were weird, I just thought you were very clever by trusting me to be clever as well. Thank you, Eileen. For everything. ...more

This is quite a brooding character study, very compelling in how it keeps on the cusp between disgust and empathy as you wait for a promised metamorphosis by the title character. You are taken into the mind of a 24-year old woman who is trapped in a sucky life. She tends to her despicable but ailing alcoholic father, a retired cop in rural coastal town in Massachusetts, while working as a sort of secretary in a correctional institute for boys. We come to learn she is surprisingly well adapted to
...more

Solid 4.5 stars. This book is not for everyone. Nothing...and I mean absolutely nothing significant happens until about 85% into the story but I still loved it...especially the tongue-in-cheek tone throughout the book. I've never known a character to engage in more self-loathing than Eileen. Somehow Otessa Moshfegh manages to make this funny.
...more

Apr 01, 2021
emma
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-ya,
dark,
library,
to-review,
mystery-thriller-horror-etc,
3-stars,
auto-buy-authors,
literary-fiction
"I wasn't radical at all. I was simply unhappy."
this book made me uncomfortable in about 16 different ways.
review to come / 3? stars
----------------
binge reading the works of ottessa moshfegh as a cry for help ...more
this book made me uncomfortable in about 16 different ways.
review to come / 3? stars
----------------
binge reading the works of ottessa moshfegh as a cry for help ...more

Sep 19, 2016
Perry
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Perry by:
Robin
Black Fable Falls a Bit Short of Feral Foreshadowing
"It's like seeing Kate Moss take a shit."
Ottessa Moshfegh, on her fiction, in Vice

Netflix cannot choose whom to cast in lead role: Lauren Lapkus of "Orange is the New Black" or DJ Qualls of "Z Nation"
Eileen, the eponymous character, is one of the most pathologically pathetic and aesthetically repelling nudniks I can recall in the past decade or so of reading literature. In her wretched life as a guard at a boys' lockdown facility, she const ...more
"It's like seeing Kate Moss take a shit."
Ottessa Moshfegh, on her fiction, in Vice

Netflix cannot choose whom to cast in lead role: Lauren Lapkus of "Orange is the New Black" or DJ Qualls of "Z Nation"
Eileen, the eponymous character, is one of the most pathologically pathetic and aesthetically repelling nudniks I can recall in the past decade or so of reading literature. In her wretched life as a guard at a boys' lockdown facility, she const ...more

I didn't love this quite as much as My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but I think I can confidently call myself an Ottessa Moshfegh fan now. She excels at crafting female characters who are sympathetic enough to warrant investment but abhorrent enough to shatter the conception that even the most contentious of antiheroines must above all else be likable. There's nothing sexy or pleasant or charming about our titular Eileen, and it's a breath of fresh air. The novel follows Eileen Dunlop, a 24-year
...more

What a dark, twisted little book. Getting a glimpse into Eileen's life and reading about the deeply (for lack of a better term) fucked-up way she thinks about herself and her surroundings was utterly fascinating to me. It almost felt weirdly voyeuristic at times, especially as you learn more about Eileen's (partly downright gross) habits and routines. The first two thirds are rather slow, but then the story picks up in pace quite rapidly, building up to what almost feels like the inevitable bang
...more

3.5 rounded up. This book is definitely not for everyone. On the positive side, I found the writing to be taut and evocative, the setting so specifically bleak, and the off-kilter details of Eileen added up to a character unlike any I've encountered. Moshfegh's talent is on full display with the rendering of Eileen, this damaged, angry, funny, unreliable narrator. She battles against her small, sad life, even if just internally, and rubs up against violence, which seems to litter the landscape o
...more

Dec 03, 2017
Paula
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Paula by:
Booker prize
Eileen, a Booker prize nominee, took me in from page 1. A weird but funny book that is not for everyone. The writing can be pretty crass at times, but you just have to let that go. Eileen is quite the character. She lives with her father in a slothingly house, eats peanuts for all her meals, wears her dead mother’s clothes, and fantasizes about certain people at work.
Highly entertaining, but weird. It’s not a long book, so give it a go.
4 out of 5 stars
Highly entertaining, but weird. It’s not a long book, so give it a go.
4 out of 5 stars

Sep 25, 2016
Julie
rated it
did not like it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
21st-century,
execrable
Inauthentic and absurd.
The author is trying to convince me that Eileen-the-little-maltworm somehow springs into action in the last pages of the book. The premise is utterly unbelievable. It takes a whole different brand of sociopath than Eileen to accomplish such a task -- something with such definitive action and consequence. The author has no real grasp of her character's pathology so there is no way that she can paint a legitimate portrait. Even a cursory reading in Psych 101 would have taken ...more
The author is trying to convince me that Eileen-the-little-maltworm somehow springs into action in the last pages of the book. The premise is utterly unbelievable. It takes a whole different brand of sociopath than Eileen to accomplish such a task -- something with such definitive action and consequence. The author has no real grasp of her character's pathology so there is no way that she can paint a legitimate portrait. Even a cursory reading in Psych 101 would have taken ...more

I deplored silence. I deplored stillness. I hated almost everything. I was very unhappy and angry all the time. I tried to control myself, and that only made me more awkward, unhappier, and angrier. I was like Joan of Arc, or Hamlet, but born into the wrong life—the life of a nobody, a waif, invisible. There's no better way to say it: I was not myself back then. I was someone else. I was Eileen.
When I was in the middle of reading Eileen, I wrote on Twitter that it was one of the realest port ...more

This was disappointing. I was intrigued at first, but it never goes anywhere until the last few pages and is so wearingly depressing that I could barely continue, even though this is a very short book.
I loved her other book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, perhaps because her protagonist is not as disgusting as Eileen, even though she is very unlikable in her own rich, privileged way. I want through many ups and downs while reading and I felt sorry for Eileen. Her parents are nasty creatures. Th ...more
I loved her other book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, perhaps because her protagonist is not as disgusting as Eileen, even though she is very unlikable in her own rich, privileged way. I want through many ups and downs while reading and I felt sorry for Eileen. Her parents are nasty creatures. Th ...more

I just value this author’s writing so much that I could basically appreciate even her novelization of a restroom monitoring log. And this practically is one.

Man Booker Prize Jury (2016), Shirley Jackson Award Nominee for Novel Jury (2015), National Book Critics Circle Award Jury (2015), The Center For Fiction First Novel Prize Jury (2015), Pulitzer Price Jury (Finalist 2015):
"So, you wanted to talk to us about Eileen, mister Stoop?" (all jury members ask me -somehow in unison)
Me: "It's pronounced Stoop, with the 'o' of hope, not of doom."
Man Booker Prize Jury (2016), Shirley Jackson Award Nominee for Novel Jury (2015), National Book Critics Circle ...more
"So, you wanted to talk to us about Eileen, mister Stoop?" (all jury members ask me -somehow in unison)
Me: "It's pronounced Stoop, with the 'o' of hope, not of doom."
Man Booker Prize Jury (2016), Shirley Jackson Award Nominee for Novel Jury (2015), National Book Critics Circle ...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Goodreads Librari...: Add book cover for Eileen e-book | 3 | 19 | Oct 26, 2020 10:43PM | |
Play Book Tag: Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh 3.5/5 | 2 | 22 | Oct 20, 2018 05:45PM | |
Play Book Tag: Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh- 3 stars | 5 | 29 | Jul 16, 2017 04:59PM | |
What's the Name o...: SOLVED. Newish dark adult novel with female's first name as title [s] | 4 | 61 | Oct 29, 2016 09:15PM | |
ManBookering: Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh | 54 | 215 | Oct 25, 2016 03:21AM |
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Her first book, McGlue, a novella, won the Fence Modern Prize in Prose and the Believer Book Award. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World. Her stories have been published in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and Granta, and have earned her a Pushcart Prize, an O. Henry Award, the Plimpton Discovery Pri
...more
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