1. This Eileen isn’t quite the gross girl from the novel.

When Eileen first hit the shelves, readers were taken aback by just how disgusting its titular character is. She catalogues her bowel movements in a diary. She indulges in depraved thoughts about the boys at the facility where she works. Her home is filthy.

“I looked so boring, lifeless, immune and unaffected, but in truth I was always furious, seething, my thoughts racing, my mind like a killer’s,” reads the novel. “It was easy to hide behind the dull face I wore, moping around. I really thought I had everybody fooled. And I didn’t really read books about flowers or home economics. I liked books about awful things — murder, illness, death.” Or just take: “Any function of the body that one hid behind closed doors titillated me. I recall one of my early relationships – not a heavy love affair, just a light one – was with a Russian man with a wonderful sense of humour who permitted me to squeeze the pus from his pimples on his back and shoulders. To me, this was the greatest intimacy.”

Eileen: 5 takeaways from Ottessa Moshfegh’s dark new thriller