Eileen

This book was just what I needed. Eileen was 24, I am 24. Maybe this review will be more personal than the ones I wrote so far, but whatever.

Tl;dr: this book is about a woman, 74, writing about herself when she was 24 and when she ran away from home. She often makes remarks about how naive, angry and invisible she was up until she ran away and I understand that. Throughout my life, I had few instances of reinventing myself when arriving to new, unfamiliar places such as university and high school. I completely sympathize with her hate for her coworkers, and the childish, petulant anger I directed at them in my thoughts.

“Your sweater's on backwards, Eileen,” said Mrs. Murray. I pulled up my collar to check. “Or maybe not. You're just so flat, I don't know what side I'm looking at—front or back.” They went on and on like that. It was awful. I suppose my manners were just as bad as theirs. I was terribly grim and unaffected, unfriendly. Or else I was strained and chipper and awkward, grating. “Ha-ha,” I said. “Coming or going, that's me—flat.” I'd never learned how to relate to people, much less how to speak up for myself. I preferred to sit and rage quietly.

If this passage doesn't describe the way I felt working in that drugstore for 3 years, I don't know what does. I truly appreciated reading this book at this point in my life where I am on another journey where almost nobody knows me, in a whole different country. I don't relate to Eileen as a whole, but the parts where we're similar truly hit hard. But enough about me.

This book is truly, really good at detailing a character and making her feel alive. I completely understand Eileen. All her contradictions, everything. It all made sense. How she says she's not superficial, how she's a prude, yet in her mind she's obsessed with grousome things, and she spends her days daydreaming and fantasizing about a man. It's so good. Many people call Eileen too whiny, self-loathing and self-pitying but I don't really think so. She talks about herself quite critically, and for an old lady recounting her days of youth I don't think it is out of place. She felt bad for her old self being where she was. You would feel bad for yourself too.