A review by bookishgoob
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

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

3.75

An older Eileen details her last few days in her home town as a 24 year old. 

Sometimes disgusting and outrightly human, Eileen delved deep into the mind of a woman of the 1960’s. It makes you think “can I admit these things about myself when i’m alone?” The way that Eileen willingly admits that she has an obsession with bowel movements, the way that she looks at the teenage boys in the prison while maintaining that she isn’t a pedophile, and her unhealthy obsession with Randy is something so wrong that it is actually right. It’s these deep thoughts that some people have that they will never ever admit. the way she fantasizes about dying, and even killing her father may make you think she is actively insane; but are these not things we think about often? Thinking of how the people around us would react if we disappeared. How we would feel if our parents who abused us just one day dropped dead? I don’t necessarily think Eileen is “unhinged”, we as a culture just don’t view “femininity” to be anything more or less than dainty, submissive, cutesy, quiet, and agreeable. Eileen is none of those things and because of that, the mind automatically jumps to her being unhinged. I feel like this story really encapsulated the human experience and the human brain when we’re left alone. completely. It explores the idea “are these feelings platonic or romantic” when it comes to your first same sex crush. I’m not sure if she really knew or ever figured it out, but it’s something i myself and many other people have gone through. Feeling as though we’d do anything for this person to like us a little bit more, trust us, need us, WANT us. It’s an ostracizing feeling. The way that Eileen was so easily manipulated by Rachel set off alarm bells in my brain. Eileen is so perfectly an adultified person. Someone who was a victim of emotional incest in her youth. forced to be her parents caretakers when she was still learning how to care for herself. The fact that she is so “vulgar” and “disgusting” is so scarily the way an adult who was a victim of adultification would act. 
The plot twist was so mind boggling. I thought for sure I had figured out what the plot twist was going to be, but i didn’t and that was exciting. Eileen was such a complicated and real person. An unreliable narrator at its best. I don’t think i’ll ever revisit this book, though. It left me feeling the way requiem for a dream (2000) did. It was off putting, nausea inducing, and downright uncomfortable. The fat shaming/fat phobia really sucked to read, but it was also very telling of Eileen’s no filter personality. The way that she looked at others is no doubt how her parents saw others and forced her to have that same rhetoric as they forced her to care for them. It’s seen especially in the way that Eileen talks about herself, and how near the end she talks about her mom buying her clothes a size too small so she would try and fit normal into those clothes. This book details so greatly the effect that adultification abuse has on children as they turn into adults. The inability to form long lasting, healthy, and real relationships. The inability to decipher right from wrong. The way that they see the world. It’s scary how well it was depicted. Eileen was a really great read. Slow at first, it doesn’t truly pick up until the last chapter “Christmas Eve” but, the foreshadowing is so incredibly important that even though it was slow paced, it had a reason to be slow paced. The pacing wasn’t an issue like it is in other slow paced books. I really enjoyed this read, but I feel like i have to go cleanse my brain to feel normal again. 

Triggers: Child Abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, pedophilic thoughts, confinement, fat phobia, death, death of a parent, vomit, feces, incest, murder, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, miscarriage, toxic friendship, toxic family, abuse, alcoholism, drug use, graphic descriptions of bodily functions (bowel movements, sweat, masturbation, menstruation, not washing hands after the bathroom, etc) 
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