A review by jukebugging
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

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

3.5

 it felt crass just for the sake of it 70% of the time and only crass for a reason the rest of the 30%. the only time the vulgarity didn’t feel like shock value and actually felt like it had a meaningful purpose was the scene with the dog pissing on the ice. it felt like a prime representation of life’s “silliness” that made the main character so miserable.

i felt for the protagonist for the majority of the book (beginning and middle mainly) despite how bad of a person she was, but the ending made me actually hate her because imo it made it clear that she didn’t “heal” from the morbidities of the world at all, but rather she finally got to a place where she truly achieved being above it all.
a woman (possibly her old friend) plunged to her death, and the main character described her as beautiful and was in awe of seeing her be beautiful as she plummeted, in a way that felt like “damn. that could’ve been me but i’m not shallow and worldly anymore because i listen to the radio in the park while i feed the squirrels. this possible reva really should get her shit together like me, and maybe she wouldn’t have died in 9/11.”


maybe the main character having no real redemption was the whole point and was proof that she was really a lost cause, and that this “enlightenment” she experienced was only temporary. but if so, that just makes this book so unbelievably bleak, if all she is is a representation of how awful and inescapable american consumer culture is or whatever. like we all already know that
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