Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

54 reviews

mandibibbs37's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Sexual assault

Minor: Animal death

baielleebooks's review against another edition

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

3.75

Ottessa Moshfegh's resounding literary talents patterns the prose in Eileen. Her descriptions of total dreariness and dilapidation, and her framing of the introspections of a pained, pitying yet manipulative narrator, made for a strong reading experience. 

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There were elements of the plot that I felt would have benefitted from some finessing (exploring the deeper motivations of Rebecca’s actions, changing what is experienced as the slight runoff of tension when Mrs Polk confesses etc.) Truthfully, I wasn't quite struck with the same electric urgency I had reading Lapvona and My Year of Rest and Relaxation. 

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All's to say that Eileen is still a novel that excited me and evidenced the power of literature to tour the minds of protagonists, who for all their unlikeability, are deeply interesting and carry cultural weight. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Rape

Moderate: Eating disorder, Excrement, Vomit, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Fatphobia, and Suicidal thoughts

lagaialettrice's review against another edition

dark funny reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Police brutality, Stalking, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Lesbophobia

guardachuva's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Child abuse

Moderate: Eating disorder, Fatphobia, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death and Suicidal thoughts

frances_frances's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

I can very much understand why people either love or hate Moshfegh's work. Eileen, like her other novels, is an uncomfortable read that managed to pull me in right from the start.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Stalking

xkrille's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.0

Eileen was perfectly fine. Again, my enjoyment of the book was hampered by the fact that I started back at university, resulting in a longer break from reading. This meant that I did not end up being completely immersed in the book. The book is really slow-paced, which you have to be ready for. However, something really started to happen in the last 20% of the book. But all in all, the book was compelling and it was a good read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, and Rape

Moderate: Eating disorder, Vomit, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal death, Fatphobia, and Suicidal thoughts

torihbu's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-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

3.0

this book describes the inner world of a troubled young woman. it's a difficult line to walk, but the author focuses so much on the inner workings of the main character's mind that the book doesn't really have much of a plot until almost the very end. i suppose that's meant to be a representation of the character's own experience--nothing mattering outside of herself until something comes along to force her into reality--but it makes for a slow, boring read. while i understand the main character, she's not very likable (again, likely by the author's design), so the reader is left to spend time only with her for the majority of the book. an interesting concept in theory but falls a bit flat in practice.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Vomit, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Alcohol

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Ableism

ekclar's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal death, Drug abuse, and Drug use

lacanadienneinreads's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

2.75

I wanted to love this book. It was very well written and literary in its exploration of dark themes. I wanted to go on a Hitchcockian caper, filled with questionable people and questionable situations. But whereas some of my favourite noirs are populated with bad people doing bad things entertainingly and with some sort of catharsis in consequences, this novel has mediocre people doing inane to depraved and evil things in an ongoing trudge of monotony and horror. The pacing of the novel makes it far more an exploration of complicity in wrong doing, generational trauma, substance abuse, neurotic coping mechanisms, shame, arrested development in a tragic moment between girlhood and womanhood, sexual deviance routed in trauma... Darkness in general, really, more than it reads as a thriller. Eileen sucks. The people around her suck. The world she inhabits is morally corrupt and also painted with the strokes of her narrating brush. This is a novel I might recommend to those who like unreliable narrators, can stomach misery porn, have interest in uncommon narration approaches and who don't mind a slog in pacing. I didn't like Eileen. But it's worth reading, analyzing and discussing. It's a book I could write an essay about but would never casually recommend to a friend. Trigger warnings for sexual abuse, eating disorders, substance abuse, trauma, generational abuse and mistreatment of minors should all be flagged here. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual violence, and Alcohol

Moderate: Animal death, Vomit, and Death of parent

ariana3's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

2.0

I was not a fan of this at all. It was recommended by a friend and I can see why she liked it, but it was not my cup of tea. The book was slow and ambling, it just felt like it was stream-of-consciousness writing, like the author was supposed to be telling a story but then would get themselves down a different rabbit hole. It was just odd, the timeline, the story, everything. Only in the last half of the last chapter did it kind of get good. And even when it ended I was confused and was just left with a "that's it?" feeling. Like the entire book was a waste.
Plot summary:

The main character, Eileen, lives with her dad who used to be a renowned police officer. After her mom died, he became a terrible drunk and was emotionally abusive. Eileen herself is a slob, gross, frumpy, doesn't care about her appearances and yet is utterly obsessed. As a young adult, she thinks she's the only "higher being" in her small Massachusetts town. She's a secretary at a youth prison and has been for several years since she was pulled out of school to care for her sick mom. Her childhood sucked, her parents sucked, her life sucks. Then this mysterious woman starts at the prison. She's obsessed with her and wants to be her lover or friend? It's confusing what she wants, she just wants attention and admiration from this woman, Rebecca. Rebecca reads a case file from one of the boys at the prison that disturbs her (a father was raping his son, so the son killed him). The mom did nothing about it and would help facilitate it. So in the last half of the last chapter, you find out that Rebecca has tied up this mom to elicit the confession. Eileen gets it and Rebecca is pissed but doesn't know what else to do. Eileen comes up with a plan to frame her dad for the mom's murder, since he's a drunk, but they would kill her. She knows Rebecca won't join her, so she says "bye" to her dad, gets her money, drives north to a pretty part of the forest, and leaves her beat up old truck running with the mom inside (passed out from pain pills) to die from carbon monoxide poisoning while she hitches a ride back south to NYC to start a new life. That's it. Literally nothing else happens...

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol

Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Animal death, Body shaming, Gun violence, and Suicidal thoughts