Eileen

Let's say this from the outset: Eileen is dark, as dark as its pitch-black cover. Eileen, who tells the story, lives a miserable, grimy existence with her alcoholic father, and, she says, likes "books about awful things—murder, illness, death." Eileen is itself one of those books. It's advertised as a bit of a suspense thriller, but while it does contain a twist in the spirit of Highsmith or Hitchcock, that's not the real story, which is what it's like to be a person nobody notices, but who notices everything. Eileen thinks almost everything she sees is awful and sad, but there's something tender and original about her disgust, and that alone is enough to make this an excellent book.