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They call Moshfegh's protagonists "unlikeable" and I have a real problem with that. What they are is honest, brutally, and clearly in a socially unacceptable way. Well, I loved Eileen Dunlop. Both Eileens, the 74 years old narrator Eileen and the 24 years version who the story is about.

The story old Eileen tells us starts in 1964 when she was a mentally and sexually abused 24 year old motherless, very damaged young woman and although there is a plot, the book mostly requires you to be comfortable living in Eileen's mind for 260 pages. No easy feat and it's not for everyone. Every dark, disgusting, embarrassing thought you ever tried to actively suppress, Eileen won't. She is the worst version of you, of anyone. She is refreshing, to tell you the truth.

This book is not as good as My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but comes very close.

"Truth be told, I was a glutton for punishment. I didn't really mind getting bossed around by my father. I'd get angry, and I loathed him, yes, but my fury gave my life a kind of purpose, and running his errands killed time. That is what I imagined life to be - one long sentence of waiting out the clock."

"Imagining his parents beating him as a child is the only path to forgiveness that I have found so far. It isn't perfect, but it does the trick."

"Looking at my reflection really did soothe me, though I hated my face with a passion. Such is the life of the self-obsessed."

"One day I'd be gone, I hoped, never to have to look at her or think of her again, so I tried to hate her with all my might, squeeze our encounters for every last drop of disgust she could ever inspire in me."

"I had no compassion for anyone unless his suffering allowed me to indulge in my own."

"I was a fool about men in general. I learned the long way about love, tried every house on the block before I got it right. Now, finally, I live alone. "

I will spare you my personal favourite paragraph, I believe it is suitable for hardcore fans of Moshfegh only, but if you own a copy, it's on page 44.