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Eileen

Ottessa Moshfegh

3.54 · Rating details · 36,520 ratings · 4,802 reviews

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

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Paperback, 260 pages

Published August 16th 2016 by Penguin Books (first published August 18th 2015)

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Dec 30, 2014 karen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: free-from-work

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

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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 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 laid bare and we see ugliness, neediness, pettiness, the most humble of narcissism that makes others rebuke her, diminish and humiliate her. Her body is also scrutinized from her breasts, to vaginal lips to bony hips to the frequency of her bowel movements and her lack of feminine hygiene. Eileen is deprived, ugly, hurt and this comes out in a myriad of ways. We are disgusted by Eileen and because of this we recoil but like the disgusting voyeurs that we are move in closer and look through our fingers at her while we pinch our noses and hold our breath.

Eileen is too weak to be an anti-hero and not evil enough to be a villain. She is the repository of all the misogyny we experience as a society and the opposite side of the coin is Rebecca who will not enter this conversation but suffice to say is the elixir that enables Eileen to break free from her depravity and enter less hellish and freer states.

Ms. Moshfegh has written a book that is so haunting, frightening and demoralizing that you will look at all the women you meet with cautiousness and suspicion. No loving grandmas, indulgent aunts, nurturing mothers, devoted wives or obedient daughters. Evil lies at the hearts of the best of them or weakness and ugliness in the worst.

I have to say that I do have some regrets reading this book as it was like eating spoilt meat (it will upset my digestion and cause me some anguish) for a few days until the wonderful women in my life can reassure me that Eileen, Rebecca and Mrs. Polk are the rarest of breeds and perhaps only exist in the darkest reaches of our imagination.

Fucking brilliant Ms. Moshfegh but please do not ever, ever, ever write a new edition of Heidi, Annie or Pippi Longstocking.

Jokes aside....I want the impact of this book to diminish quickly !! ...more

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Jun 21, 2015 Wendy Darling rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-publication, august, historical-fiction, thriller-suspense, penguin, read-2015, psychological-thriller, 2015-favorites, tough-subjects, adult

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

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Jul 01, 2015 Conny rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks, reviews, giveaways, first-to-read, books-i-own

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

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Apr 08, 2016 Paul Bryant rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

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

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Jan 26, 2017 Jen rated it liked it · review of another edition

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

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Feb 01, 2017 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

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Sep 17, 2016 Esil rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley

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

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Sep 16, 2019 Felicia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"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

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Feb 06, 2017 Carol rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, read-2017, ebook, published-2015

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

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Feb 11, 2016 Robin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american, 2016, gothic, booker-prize-nominated, literary-fiction, favourites

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 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 voice, "You can't HANDLE the truth!" Perhaps though the real truth is that when I first read it, this book spoke to me in dark, brave whispers. It told me a woman is out there who writes ruthless, stabbing words as far as she damn wants. And that just maybe, I could do it too. My own words, my own story, not this author's at all, but still. It inspired me in my writing life, and probably that's why I hold it so preciously.

I still love you, Eileen.

* * * *

(original 2016 review)
A moody, dark story, told just PERFECTLY. It meanders at first, leaving you wondering maybe where it's going. I trusted that during these times the author was showing us the character and her reality, which couldn't be summed up in a few paragraphs. Moshfegh used the first few parts of the book to show us the bleakness and pain, and the rotting aspects of Eileen's existence. Also, her extreme loneliness and desire for connection, and her childish innocence of other people's intentions.

I'm repulsed by Eileen (her personal hygiene is actually nauseating), but I'm also rooting for her, because she is so very damaged and emotionally stunted, and deprived (of practically everything - love, joy, food). At age 24, she is full of self loathing, and knows she needs to leave "X-Ville", her job at the prison, and that disgusting home she shares with her abusive and drunk father.

This story is how she gets out - told by a much older and wiser Eileen. Getting out isn't the beginning of a great life (in fact, it sounds like she has quite a hard, long road to go until she ends up by herself, at peace, in her old age), but it is the beginning of that road, which is pivotal for Eileen. It is also about a brief period of happiness in her life; an unlikely love story which propels the action to its inevitable conclusion.

The style reminds me of writers like Shirley Jackson, and Patricia Highsmith. Starkly and unapologetically realistic, yet artistically faultless. ...more

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Aug 26, 2017 Matthew Quann rated it it was amazing

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 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 Eileen is just a single example.

That's not to say that it is wrong to not want to read books that challenge, disgust, or shock. Indeed, I understand those readers who want stories that eschew the smothering complexity of real life in favour of books who have clear heroes and villains and happy endings. I, too, have a lot of fun with those types of books, but it is a book like Eileen that really gets at what I love about reading.

From the opening pages, Moshfegh introduces a unique and magnetic narrator in the form of Eileen. I've decided not to discuss the actual plot of the book in this review simply because discovering what this book is about through Eileen's narration is half the scrappy beauty of this novel. The writing is almost conversational, though undoubtedly literary.

The conceit of Eileen is that Eileen herself is narrating her tumultuous twenties in unfortunate circumstances as an elderly woman reflecting upon her life. She'll pause in the middle of a scene to offer an explanation for her behaviour, or to offer context. In this way, Moshfegh is able to convey a lot of information in a way that feels consistently interesting and never reads like an unnecessary info-dump.

I've read a lot of reviews that seemed to harp on the same two points: Eileen herself is unlikeable, and the book is far too concerned with bodily functions. To each of these comments I offer an alternative interpretation. Eileen is not someone who behaves in a way that is always understandable. She does immoral things, she's self-pittying, she pines for lives without ever taking the action to bring her towards those possible futures. I agree that she is complex, but I think it is unfair to call her outright unlikeable. These early passages also lead the way for character evolution later in the novel.

For the icky bits, I felt they worked well in the context of the novel, but may not have worked for another book. I thought of it as coming to know the entirety of someone, even the filthy, embarrassing bits, and still seeing their value. One of the things I really enjoyed was how funny the book could be. Moshfegh inserts a lot of witty bits in there that make the book a lot of fun to read, though I've read few reviews that highlight that humour.

When the 2016 Man Booker Prize shortlist came out, Eileen was the book I was least interested in and the negative reviews reaffirmed my choice to avoid it. But when I found a rather pristine copy for $2 at a local book sale, I decided to throw caution to the wind and give Eileen a try. Though it sat on my shelves for months, I'm glad I decided to pick it up. This book hooked me and I was consistently excited to get back to it throughout the day. I can't recommend this book to everyone, especially since so many people seem to hate it. But I do think that you should give it a whirl in spite of the bad reviews. Who knows? It might tickle your fancy. ...more

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Dec 17, 2015 Maxwell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

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 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 Moshfegh's style and literary ambitions before returning to this because it gave me a much greater appreciation for it. I really can't wait to see what she writes next!

Original Review: July 28-30, 2016

I guess that is how those sick people get by. They look like nobodies, but behind closed doors they turn into monsters.

This is the story of Eileen. Or really it's Eileen's story; it's a story Eileen tells us, a story we are led to believe. But it's not always clear how much is believable, or how trustworthy Eileen really is.

Eileen is a loner. She lives with her alcoholic, abusive father. She works at the local boys' prison. She stalks a security guard, Randy, because she's infatuated with him. That is until Rebecca Saint John shows up and Eileen moves on from a girlhood crush to full-fledge admiration. As her obsession and insecurities wind themselves together, Eileen loses control of her own story.

Otessa Moshfegh doesn't hold back. This is one of the grittiest and harshest books I've read. Eileen is a fascinating character. She's detestable, and yet you can't help but strangely sympathize with her. She doesn't take care of herself--she drinks as much as her father, eats poorly and barely bathes--but still she's completely obsessed with appearances. It's this amazing contradiction that balances well with the book's few settings: Eileen's filthy home; the prison where she works; and X-ville's one local bar (Eileen masks real locations and names with invented ones, since it is her story after all). I felt filthy just reading this book, and I applaud Moshfegh for creating such a visceral reaction in me.

All that being said, I think this would've been a lot better as a novella or short story. Many of the plot points are barely fleshed out enough to propel the story forward, and the final course of action that is hinted at in the book's blurb is so late in the story that you don't get enough time to settle into its consequences before the story is over. Either Moshfegh needed to shorten the whole thing, or make it longer with flashbacks or parallel storylines to create a depth to the story that I felt it lacked.

2 stars on Goodreads is "it was ok," and it totally was. I found it to be an entertaining read, one that was truly unlike anything I've read--Eileen's character especially--and I'm interested to see what Moshfegh does next. But overall not a book I'm going to be raving about and won't read again. ...more

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Aug 08, 2016 Kelly (and the Book Boar) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: super-meh, im-a-lemming, read-in-2016, the-great-white-hype, liburrrrrry-book, daddy-issues

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

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Aug 21, 2016 LeAnne: GeezerMom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: crazies, favorite-books, litmus-test

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 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 finger. Or her finger, in this case.

Eileen is weird. She is not keen on bathing, lives off a handful of peanuts, and once a week takes massive doses of laxatives to purge. She lives at home with her pop who never much loved her but does appreciate the bottles of gin she runs out to get him.

But as she narrates the story 50 years later under an assumed name, we wonder what it was that finally gave her the guts to run off from her unnamed city - Xville, she calls it. We assume, of course, that some sort of crime has taken place, and even in her 70s, Eileen is guarding her actions.

"I looked like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus, reading some clothbound book from the library about plants or geography, perhaps wearing a net over my light brown hair. You might take me for a nursing student or a typist, note the nervous hands, a foot tapping, bitten lip. I looked like nothing special.""

""I kept in the glove box of the Dodge a dead field mouse I’d found one day on the porch frozen in a tight ball. I’d picked it up by its tail and swirled it through the air for a moment, then slung it in the glove box with a broken flashlight, a map of New England freeways, a few green nickels."

""...honestly, even in those darkest moments, the idea of anyone examining my naked corpse was enough to keep me alive. I was that ashamed of my body. It also concerned me that my demise would have no great impact, that I could blow my head off and people would say, “That’s all right. Let’s get something to eat.”"

"I remember a man I met in my thirties who bent my ear one night babbling about his happy childhood—presents under the tree, cocoa, puppies, chestnuts roasting on an open fire. There’s nothing I detest more than men with happy childhoods.""

The first three quarters of this book were a delicious slow burn for me. The dark and bizarre life Eileen leads in her secretarial Job at a juvenile boys detention center takes a new turn, and finally - pop! A surprise.

Up until the last several pages of this book, I would have given it a five star rating. Look - I love horrible narrators like Dr. Marc and Joe Lon and that chick from the Girl on the Train book. They are far more interesting than any goody two shoes character ever written. Even when the narrator is a good guy, I end up judging a book by the complexity of the villain in the story. The motivation behind the bad is a lot more difficult to write, I think, than somebody who grew up as part of the Brady Bunch.

So prepare to be repulsed and mesmerized. In a million years, I had no idea where this book or should I say Eileen was going. While the conclusion left me a bit wanting, this quick read is well worth the time. I could not put this down! Four point seven five stars

UPDATE: Booker short list! ...more

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Sep 25, 2016 Peter Boyle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: booker-nominee

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

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Feb 01, 2019 Pedro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: i-deserved-it

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

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Dec 01, 2016 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, child-abuse, family-relationships, massachusetts, mental-illness, netgalley, noir

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

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Feb 23, 2016 Tooter rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

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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

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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

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Oct 23, 2018 Rachel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, literary-fiction, disaster-women

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 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-old friendless young woman living in rural Massachusetts in the 1960s, working at a boys' prison she calls Moorehead by day and caring for her cruel alcoholic father by night. She daydreams of escaping the monotony of her everyday existence, until one day the alluring Rebecca takes a position as a counselor at Moorehead and Eileen finds herself with a new fixation.

In contrast to the richly textured Eileen, her foil Rebecca is drawn rather simply, but with precision. She's beautiful and she wears all the right clothes and says all the right things. Eileen doesn't allow herself to consider that Rebecca is anything less than perfect or that her intentions are anything less than noble, but as these events are being narrated to us by a much older Eileen, the reader is painfully aware that certain limitations in young-Eileen's perspective are going to lead inexorably to a tragic conclusion. But we also know that both Eileen and Rebecca make it out alive, so the question becomes how their dynamic is able to culminate in catastrophe that spares them both.

Moshfegh rises to the challenge, as the whole thing slowly builds toward a chilling and mesmerizing climax, as dark as it is unexpected. My only hangup with this novel is the repetition in its descriptions of Eileen's home life. Maybe it's meant to reflect the tedium that Eileen herself feels, or maybe it's an indication that this would have worked better as a short story, as others have suggested. But still, I really enjoyed this, as both a character study and a commentary on the bizarre and contradictory ways women are socialized to view themselves and others. This is better read as a character-driven literary novel than a thriller, but even so, I was thrilled by it. ...more

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Aug 11, 2016 Lotte rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ge-crime-mystery-thriller, t-christmas-winter-reads, t-twisted-minds, x-added-star-ending, t-prison, a-fiction, 2015-release, t-women-misbehaving, 2017-read

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

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Aug 17, 2016 Rae Meadows rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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

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Dec 03, 2017 Paula rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Paula by: Booker prize

Shelves: national-book-critics-nominee, published-2015, read-in-2017, suspense-thriller, mystery, booker-prize-nominee, e-book

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

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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

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Sep 05, 2015 Blair rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-release, read-on-kindle, dark-character-study, favourites, historical, booker-prize, first-novels

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

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Jan 24, 2020 Beverly rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: psychological-drama

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

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Nov 11, 2019 Jenna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-reading-challenge, major-family-malfunction, unreliable-narrators, body-dysmorphia, reviewed, retro-fabulous, favorite-reads-of-2019, obsession, noir-or-noir-ish, creepy-houses

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.

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Jul 29, 2016 Joachim Stoop rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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

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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

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About Ottessa Moshfegh

Ottessa Moshfegh

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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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“People truly engaged in life have messy houses.” — 105 likes

“Here is how I spend my days now. I live in a beautiful place. I sleep in a beautiful bed. I eat beautiful food. I go for walks through beautiful places. I care for people deeply. At night my bed is full of love, because I alone am in it. I cry easily, from pain and pleasure, and I don’t apologize for that. In the mornings I step outside and I’m thankful for another day. It took me many years to arrive at such a life.” — 65 likes

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