Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

136 reviews

lameura's review against another edition

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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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333jamie's review against another edition

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dark funny sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Significantly better than the movie. Eileen is naïve, self aware to a detriment, sexually repressed, neglected, etc. but so unlikeable in the movie. I'm glad I read the book and learned more about her mind and experiences. This poor girl. She's twenty four but she's just a kid. Wow.

Also Rebecca!!! The way she was written! She was really remarkably beautiful, so beautiful I had to avert my eyes. / Rebecca was very intimidating to me. / She was so pretty, a miraculous sight in such an ugly place, it surprised me that others weren't pointing and staring. Every passage about her helped me understand Eileen so much more. Wow. Also what a coward. Idc!

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danibrand's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a wonderful book for the highly introspective, off-kilter thinker. If you’ve ever doubted yourself or your place in this world, Eileen will allow you to openly reassess your own shortcomings as potential escape routes while you read along with hers. Growth is inevitable.

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pages_turned's review

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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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spozk's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0


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vbarsi's review against another edition

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

3.75


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sophiafrances_'s review against another edition

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

3.75

I love the way moshfegh writes characters, with their empathy so deeply repressed. I just wished the real gripping plot would have kicked in a little sooner. I just felt uninvested by the time is did

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randisworld's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a very dark story of a young woman with a difficult life. It covers lots of gritty topics but is written very well. 

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kangaci's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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raisinreads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I wanted a bit more from the plot of the book, but it was the writing style that absolutely sucked me in. I know there's a movie out based on it now, which I am unsure about watching as the main virtue of this book by far was the prose

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