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A review by mabelsyrup
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
this book felt personal, and it made me mad ngl.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation was a very introspective read, it dealt with cronic depression, nihilism and grief in a way that didn't romanticize it as to make it seem like it's "aesthetic" and "we all get sad sometimes" but rather made it look ugly and unkept and undesireable. Ottessa Moshfegh knew what she was doing and she did it wonderfully; the narrator (which? I never realized she was never given a name?? i liked that) is physically beautiful but inside she is empty, vain, narcissistic, rude, obnoxious, and very very veeery relatable, she is complex and I often didn't like her, and i think that's the point, she's so far gone that she's just the shell of someone she never got the chance to be, her idea to sleep until she became someone different is desperate and a cry for help of a sort, she wants to experience life and feel the things that we're supposed to instead of that void that eats away at her aaagghgg. Reva also deserves a special mention, she shows another side of living with (i think) deppresion and low self esteem, they were both very flawed and had different outlooks on life, their friendship was interesting.
The book is gen very well crafted, the pace dragged WITH intention in the middle but otherwise it was a breeze (to a fault lol). Not much else to say, the book is just the main character going through this journey and dissecting the things that make her the way she is or isn't. Also, very funny? in a witty and sardonic way imo.
The book does fall off a bit toward the end; after she achieves her plan for the ultimate rejuvenating sleep the story wraps up insanely quickly, i have thought that maybe it's a way of showing how she was right; this plan really worked miracles on her and changed her life in a matter of 2 weeks max, but idk how much i'm into that explanation cuz up to that point this book was very realistic in its portrayal of depression, isolation and the feeling of otherness and having this near magical solution kinda made it look like either there's no positive way of getting over these feelings in the real world or it's proposing this idea that this is a legit approach, but honestly who the fuck cares it was still enjoyable and seeing her becoming a philosophical-thrifting-non caffeinated girlie was fun. Another thing I didn't love was the very last chapter, that last page! Idk what I wanted exactly but THAT last page was weird? I guess it shows the ways that both her and Reva got out of their deppresion, even if one of them was forced, they both took the decision for themselves.
TLDR: weird, but not as weird as I thought. Much more relatable than I ever imagined. Fun!
"I thought life would be more tolerable if my brain were slower to condemn the world around me"
"Life was fragile and fleeting and one had to be cautious, sure, but I would risk death if it meant I could sleep all day and become a whole new person"
"I had no big plan to become a curator, no great scheme to work my way up a ladder. I was just trying to pass the time. I thought that if I did normal things-held down a job, for example-I could starve off the part of me that hated everything"
"Oh, sleep, nothing else could ever bring me such pleasure, such freedom, the power to feel and move and think and imagine, safe from the miseries of my waking consciousness"
"They were all so jovial and relaxed with one another, fraternal even. Maybe I was envious of that. They had lives-that was evident."
"Rejection, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion"
"There was majesty and grace in the pace of the swaying branches of the willows. There was kindness. Pain is not the only touchstone for growth, I said to myself. My sleep had worked. I was soft and calm and felt things. This was good. This was my life now"
"I'd be renewed, reborn. I would be a whole new person, every one of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories. My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relacation"
My Year of Rest and Relaxation was a very introspective read, it dealt with cronic depression, nihilism and grief in a way that didn't romanticize it as to make it seem like it's "aesthetic" and "we all get sad sometimes" but rather made it look ugly and unkept and undesireable. Ottessa Moshfegh knew what she was doing and she did it wonderfully; the narrator (which? I never realized she was never given a name?? i liked that) is physically beautiful but inside she is empty, vain, narcissistic, rude, obnoxious, and very very veeery relatable, she is complex and I often didn't like her, and i think that's the point, she's so far gone that she's just the shell of someone she never got the chance to be, her idea to sleep until she became someone different is desperate and a cry for help of a sort, she wants to experience life and feel the things that we're supposed to instead of that void that eats away at her aaagghgg. Reva also deserves a special mention, she shows another side of living with (i think) deppresion and low self esteem, they were both very flawed and had different outlooks on life, their friendship was interesting.
The book is gen very well crafted, the pace dragged WITH intention in the middle but otherwise it was a breeze (to a fault lol). Not much else to say, the book is just the main character going through this journey and dissecting the things that make her the way she is or isn't. Also, very funny? in a witty and sardonic way imo.
The book does fall off a bit toward the end; after she achieves her plan for the ultimate rejuvenating sleep the story wraps up insanely quickly, i have thought that maybe it's a way of showing how she was right; this plan really worked miracles on her and changed her life in a matter of 2 weeks max, but idk how much i'm into that explanation cuz up to that point this book was very realistic in its portrayal of depression, isolation and the feeling of otherness and having this near magical solution kinda made it look like either there's no positive way of getting over these feelings in the real world or it's proposing this idea that this is a legit approach, but honestly who the fuck cares it was still enjoyable and seeing her becoming a philosophical-thrifting-non caffeinated girlie was fun. Another thing I didn't love was the very last chapter, that last page! Idk what I wanted exactly but THAT last page was weird? I guess it shows the ways that both her and Reva got out of their deppresion, even if one of them was forced, they both took the decision for themselves.
TLDR: weird, but not as weird as I thought. Much more relatable than I ever imagined. Fun!
"I thought life would be more tolerable if my brain were slower to condemn the world around me"
"Life was fragile and fleeting and one had to be cautious, sure, but I would risk death if it meant I could sleep all day and become a whole new person"
"I had no big plan to become a curator, no great scheme to work my way up a ladder. I was just trying to pass the time. I thought that if I did normal things-held down a job, for example-I could starve off the part of me that hated everything"
"Oh, sleep, nothing else could ever bring me such pleasure, such freedom, the power to feel and move and think and imagine, safe from the miseries of my waking consciousness"
"They were all so jovial and relaxed with one another, fraternal even. Maybe I was envious of that. They had lives-that was evident."
"Rejection, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion"
"There was majesty and grace in the pace of the swaying branches of the willows. There was kindness. Pain is not the only touchstone for growth, I said to myself. My sleep had worked. I was soft and calm and felt things. This was good. This was my life now"
"I'd be renewed, reborn. I would be a whole new person, every one of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories. My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relacation"
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Grief, and Drug use