A review by lacanadienneinreads
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

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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