Eileen (Book Review)

By Otessa Moshfegh

I don’t make a huge habit out of reading fiction, but this gripping, dark and haunting novel really got under my skin, and I recommend it. It’s fantastic writing, and the author has a style that keeps you interested with every sentence she writes, which I find rare.

The novel centers around a mildly to severely disturbed young woman with a rough home life. She works at a boys’ juvenile prison, and comes home to an alcoholic father. One day a new woman, Rebecca, is hired at the prison, and it changes Eileen’s life forever. Eileen muses about her first impressions of Rebecca:

“You can see wealth in people no matter what they’re wearing. It’s in the cut of their chins, a certain gloss to the skin, a drag and pause to their responsiveness. When poor people hear a loud noise, they whip their heads around. Wealthy people finish their sentences, then just glance back.”

Rebecca and Eileen form a fast friendship and commit a crime in only a matter of days- and the novel keeps the reader in deadly suspense about what this crime could be until the end of the book. On the whole, Eileen was a trippy read which I recommend if you are ready for staying up late, and getting weirded out by life and the people that populate it with you. As Eileen states in the book:

“Anyway, I don’t trust those people who poke around sad people’s minds and tell them how interesting it all is up there. It’s not interesting.”

But don’t be fooled. This book is.

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