Eileen in The Roundtable

May 13, 2024 Lark Benobi added it

reading this novel was like playing with the slime that comes in a little bucket and you squish it for fun. Later it evolved into a feeling more like I was being gently bludgeoned.

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Aug 15, 2016 Viv JM rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-literary, author-female, read-in-2016, thriller

Eileen seems to be one of the more controversial choices for the Man Booker prize longlist. I can see why it wouldn't be to everybody's taste. The actual plot of the novel could have been a short story, and so the novel as a whole became more of a detailed character study of Eileen herself. Eileen is not the most likeable protagonist. She is obsessed with her bowels, her genitals, her bodily fluids generally. Occasionally I was repulsed by this book but it was also oddly compelling and I think t ...more

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Jun 10, 2019 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2019, women-writers

Overall I enjoyed this book, which I read on a weekend alone (speed is always a good measurement). The prose was superior to much of what I've read recently, and the story had a good core. The setting was strong -- full of squalor, cold, stink and despair. It wasn't really a thriller, as one of the blurbs on the cover said. The 'crime' segment of the story is quite short.
On the down side, I felt the 'on-ramp' was very long. On page 57, I had already grown weary of the drill-down on self-loathin ...more

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Jan 03, 2017 Heather(Gibby) added it

Holy Wow Batman!

I read this book because I needed a book that fit the "Christmas Sucks" category for a challenge.
If that is not the biggest understatement. Poor Eileen has about the worse Christmas anyone could imagine.

This story is told from the point of view of Eileen as an adult, and is portrayed as a happy and successful adult, so the reader knows she will make it through the other end. The story is told over a four day period. Eileen's mother has passed away when she is a child, and she n ...more

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Sep 03, 2016 Rachel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, man-booker-winner-finalist, libraryebook

It seemed like the first two thirds were only to justify the unbelievable ending.

Also, this is the second Man-Booker nominee this year to show a young woman who believes she is beloved, even if mistakenly or for a short time. Is that what we all want in life?

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Nov 18, 2016 Kai Coates rated it it was ok

I can read books with unlikeable narrators/characters all day long, but they need to be well done. I do not think this one, despite all of the praise thrown at it, is remarkable. There are good moments, and the character study of Eileen is interesting, but the second-most important character (Rebecca) is flimsy and clichéd. Moshfegh has mainly written short stories before, and I think it is evident in the construction of this novel. I would recommend picking up a Joyce Carol Oates instead.

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