Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Mój rok relaksu i odpoczynku

I dont understand the hype for this book. I feel like I remember people raving about this a few years ago but I truly found this whole book horribly depressing and meaningless. It gave Holden Caulfield vibes in the worst way.

I guess you could say its a feminist book representing women in the worst way, women can be horrible too, women contain multitudes. I'm also pretty positive it doesn't pass the reverse Bechdel test (men are rarely mentioned and only in reference to sex). Which I guess is interesting... idk overall I thought it was terribly boring and depressing.

The main character is in her 20s, both her parents have passed away which she says she has come to terms with but clearly still deeply affects her. She has decided she wants to sleep her life away. She goes to a bad therapist complaining of sleep problems so she can get prescribed increasingly wild drugs. She then takes a cocktail of drugs in efforts to fully sleep through the rest of life to varying success. Her therapist is an extremely hippie unhinged bad therapist, her best friend is extremely vain and fake, her deceased mother was an alcoholic and uncaring. Overall every single character was unbearable and annoying and I don't feel like I particularly learned or gained anything from reading it.

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sophiemarie422's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I think it's easy to write this book off as off as a superficial portrayal of a privileged sad women, but if you've ever struggled with very intense depression and given the options, I would have found myself in a similar position. It's not about class or race that would be reducing especially when you consider the author Otessa Moshfegh as a person and her other works. In a high pressure world where were consistently under each other's criticisms it's hard for me to imagine why somebody with her thought process would want to come to a world that would inevitably criticize and demean her one way or another. This isn't a defense of some of her very selfish acts in the books primarily towards her best friends, but rather the importance of the perspective the book brings to the table

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tezariah's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is a very complicated book and story. The main character who remains unnamed throughout the whole novel is extremely complicated. She is incredibly unlikeable and we are given no reason to like her as a person at all. However, from many reviews I have read and heard, there are people who want to like the main character to make up for the lack of plot. I think that’s understandable and also foolish. As readers, we aren’t supposed to love and idolize every character we read. Sometimes, we are supposed to dislike them but try and understand their story. At least, that’s my philosophy and what I presume to be true.

This novel is incredibly well written. This is my first read from Ottessa Moshfegh and I plan to read her other works.

I did love this character because of how real and relatable she was, and I’m not some white, rich, woman who lives in New York City or had some upperclass life with parents who seemed of high status or whatever. I am pretty much far below that bar and rank, but that doesn’t mean she should be erased and neglected from minds because she doesn’t have that relation, connection, or tie… she is relatable in the sense of having given up and wanting a fresh start and being so done with life. She was depressed and didn’t know how to manage and chose an option that seemed better to her and we read that play out.

I don’t think the purpose was to get us to sympathize, especially with how twisted, cruel, and menacing she was with her words and some of her actions, but we could sympathize and understand without liking her. I enjoyed that.

Considering a lot of reviews that I have read and heard, I do think this book is for a specific and small group of people, but I don’t exactly know that group.

Content Warnings

elybakouche's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

What a weird read. Some reviews said Sally Rooney fans would enjoy it but I am one and there is honestly nothing that reminded me of SR’s books in this work, not in the story or character development, not in the writing.

This book should be called “My Year of Drugging Myself Thanks to My Psychiatrist and Hiding From My Problems”, the title was misleading. The character just sleeps and goes on hallucination trips. I do not recommend it.

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I fail to see why this book was such a sensation. It was possible one is the worst uses of my time. It had no point whatsoever, which is probably the way I would describe every single character too.

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