Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

88 reviews

riotgrrrl92's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Ottessa Moshfegh lets us into the minds of people we would never want to get to know in real life. Her narrators are fascinating, horrible, darkly satirical, and sometimes relatable in very shameful ways. In fact, I think shame is the main theme of this book. I typically don’t like slow-paced novels but every sentence of this book kept me hooked. Eileen’s inner world is twisted and disturbing, making even the most mundane tasks a freakish horror. I love it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Alcoholism, Toxic friendship, Incest, Eating disorder, Excrement, and Vomit

Moderate: Medical content, Rape, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

nyah_lou's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Vomit, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Incest, Excrement, Death of parent, and Child abuse

miriam_mal's review

I read about 70% of Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh before DNF’ing and I just…needed to process my thoughts. (SPOILERS BELOW)

Before I get into it I guess it’s only fair to say this: I had an impression of what Ottessa Moshfegh’s books were like and stayed away for a long time bc it’s really just not my cuppa Joe. I think the only thing that compelled me to check out Eileen was that there’s a movie coming out, and I thought it was a murder mystery, or thriller maybe. Knew there was a murder involved. 

Since I am interested in how people write, like in a mechanical, technical sense, I thought I’d give it a go. Wish I hadn’t. While I think she writes vividly, going back and forth from memory to current day pretty smoothly, praising someone’s form can only go so far. 

Eileen as a character is a repressed mid-20s woman, super isolated and emotionally abused who feels trapped in her situation. She’s self destructive, body-obsessed, and I saw another review call her “psychosexual”, a term I’d never heard before but which seems apt. Like she’s repulsed by her own body, hardly showers, hardly eats, drinks with her dad, their house is in utter squalor, and then when she does encounter other people she hyper sexualizes them to the extreme, and weaponizes their appearances against herself to confirm her own shortcomings.   there are passages that say I preferred the struggle, the problem, because it emphasized her own misery to herself, sort of validated her victimhood and struggle. 
Definitely some grim descriptions not for the faint of heart or if you’re in a tough place mentally. 
Character definitely in a horrible place in life and lacks the gumption to pull herself together enough to look after herself, and is so horrified by her own physical being. Jarring read to say the least, and not a nice place to linger mentally. Again it was for that reason I expected not to like it. 

I couldn’t help but think if the character were male and the book was popular, being made into a movie with a major Hollywood actor in a leading role, the reception would be so wildly different. 

There seems to be a movement or trend currently of books written about womanhood that are just carnal, or “irreverent” is a word I come across a lot when talking about these books, but I just can’t get past how unhealthy the behaviour is. I’m not really sure what the appeal is in having characters have no boundaries or discipline and just allowing themselves to be utterly derailed by their intrusive thoughts. Its just gross. I understand that our own internal monologues are not always clean or kind but I’m of the opinion that overindulging these tendancies is more self destructive than anything (both for a reader and a writer). 

I added content warnings and put them all as graphic, not that they're all super vivid but just discussed constantly. So anyone looking to avoid these topics really should steer clear of this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Self harm, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Death of parent, Addiction, Body shaming, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Rape, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

mreisen's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Major trigger warning for multiple types of abuse and addiction. Read if you like introspective character studies and enjoy a winding, convoluted, sometimes unclear plot.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Rape, Physical abuse, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Drug abuse, Domestic abuse, Cursing, Body horror, Body shaming, Addiction, Alcoholism, Vomit, Torture, Terminal illness, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Toxic relationship, Stalking, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Incest, Homophobia, Gun violence, Grief, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Dementia, Death, Confinement, Chronic illness, Child abuse, and Car accident

natalieseraf's review

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

1.0

Too graphic/upsetting/intense for me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Vomit, Rape, and Incest

lameura's review

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Grief, Vomit, Death, Incest, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Rape, Addiction, Drug use, Child abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Mental illness, Eating disorder, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Fatphobia, Kidnapping, Murder, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, Alcohol, and Dysphoria

olive_lol's review

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This novel's setting over the Christmas season creates a uniquely lonely atmosphere. Each scene is packed with description of often mundane things, which, for me, at least, got old after about a hundred pages. Some topics, like alcoholism and child abuse, are explored deeply through multiple characters who experience them.

This novel obviously makes you uncomfortable and grossed out on purpose, but I honestly don't think the story benefits much from that. Most of the sensetive or gross topics feel like they were only included for shock and contributed little to any wider commentary. However, some topics are very well-explored, just not most of those included. That said, make sure you check the content warnings for this book.

Nothing much in the plot happens until about the last third; most of the book leading up to that point is a mix of anecdotes, atmosphere, and gross-out description. For most of the first third, I was really considering picking up another book instead because so little was happening or felt significant. It did create a nice payoff when, in the last third, things started happening, but that didn't outweigh the slowness of the beginning and middle for me.

This book really wasn't for me. It had some merits, like strong descriptions and atmosphere. However, I couldn't look past the overly slow pacing and the overuse of some sensetive topics seemingly for shock.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Excrement, Murder, Child abuse, Kidnapping, Violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Eating disorder, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Gaslighting, Incest, Gun violence, Pedophilia, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Stalking, Vomit, Body shaming, Sexual content, Fatphobia, Sexual harassment, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Racial slurs, Classism, Cursing, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, Car accident, Homophobia, and Animal death

pages_turned's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

** Some spoilers below **

Atmospheric — that’s the best way to describe this book. 

The narration is confessional. Eileen’s account veers between startling self-awareness (this insight comes in hindsight — young Eileen is naive, easily manipulated, desperate and ashamed) and questionable memory. 

The reader is dragged alongside Eileen in the beginning half of the book. You exist in her dreary life. You stumble alongside her in drunken desperation, sit with her in her filth, and wince at her bald insecurity. 

But the “dark and glittering” world beyond her front door — covered in an unforgiving and unrelenting blanket of snow — is this expectant presence throughout the book. You’re just waiting to find out what forces Eileen out into the cold that final time. 

** Spoiler alert ** 

The twist on p222 was delightful. This moments catapults the reader from Eileen’s stagnant life of self-delusion. 

The deer at the end is the sign of rebirth. Stags shed their antlers every year and they grow back.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Violence, Incest, Pedophilia, and Rape

Moderate: Excrement, Body shaming, and Vomit

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

earofthedog's review

dark sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Excrement

Moderate: Pedophilia and Sexism

evetoi's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Child abuse, Rape, Excrement, Vomit, Alcoholism, Death of parent, and Pedophilia