Overall, the novel received mostly positive reviews.[14] Kirkus Reviews named it one of their best books of 2015, calling it "[a] shadowy and superbly told story of how inner turmoil morphs into outer chaos".[15] Writing for The New York Times, Lily King notes how, "Moshfegh writes beautiful sentences. One after the other they unwind — playful, shocking, wise, morbid, witty, searingly sharp. The beginning of this novel is so impressive, so controlled yet whimsical, fresh and thrilling, you feel she can do anything."[11] Similarly, Jean Zimmerman of NPR praised the author, writing, "[c]harmingly disturbing. Delightfully dour. Pleasingly perverse. These are some of the oxymorons that ran through my mind as I read Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh's intense, flavorful, remarkable new novel."[10] For The Guardian, Lydia Kiesling was more mixed, writing "like Eileen the woman, there are things to admire and disturb in Moshfegh’s book – the perversity, the pervading sense of doom. But there is something about this novel that, like its heroine, is not quite right. The prose clunks; Eileen is a little too in love with her own awfulness".[9]
Moshfegh won the 2016 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.[4] Eileen was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize[5] and the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award.[6]
