Just by coincidence, I read Eileen before it ended up on the Man Booker Prize shortlist. So, unusually for me, I have already read a book on the list and can publish a review shortly after they announced it. Since I have only read one book on the 2015 short list so far for my project, this is really getting ahead of the curve for me.
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Eileen is an astounding combination of character study and thriller. What is more astounding is that very little happens until the end of the novel, which still draws you along and builds suspense.
Eileen is an unhappy young woman who lives with her alcoholic, verbally abusive father in a suburb of Boston. She is deep in self-hatred and combines an ignorance of the world with a fascination with grotesque and ugly things. She is outwardly prudish but secretly obsessed with sex and bodily functions. All-in-all, she is deeply unpleasant, but we still manage to have some sympathy for her and understand how she got that way.
Eileen works at a prison for boys, where she has a crush on one of the guards. She spends a lot of her free time stalking him.
But then she meets Rachel and becomes completely infatuated. She does not realize that Rachel is not the person she seems. Eileen’s occasional comments from many years later indicate that she has only a few days more in her hometown, and the suspense builds as we wonder why she left. One thing we know is that it involves Rachel.
This novel is a masterful character study of a deeply troubled person. She is all too human and believable.
whatmeread 
As I said recently about, I think, 15 Dogs, I find the premise interesting but not appealing, if that makes sense.
Yes, it does. I didn’t think I’d like it that much, either, but it was good.
I was surprised by how much I liked reading about such an unpleasant person. Glad you liked it, too!