questionaut's reviews
4 reviews

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

challenging dark slow-paced

4.25

deeply uncomfortable, but that's moshfegh's intention.

i find this difficult to recommend to friends, but i personally enjoyed it a lot. there's something about the depiction of depression here that struck me as relatable in a few ways, but the stink of privelige on the protagonist hits you and you're like 'oh, right. that.' she is deeply unlikeable. everyone in this book is awful. i enjoyed it a lot, even if certain parts of it were perplexing in a way that didn't fit quite as neatly as the overall sense of malaise that RADIATES from this book.

didn't come from the tiktok reading lists everyone was talking about, just saw people saying enjoying this too much is a bit of a red flag. i get what they mean now. love reading about messy unlikeable women.
if that's your thing and you enjoy slow-paced novels where characters continually choose to fuck up, go right ahead. 

Blasted by Sarah Kane

dark tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

initially repugnant, but it isn’t just violent because it can be.

PLEASE adhere to the warnings associated with this text. if it seems like your thing, i’d go into it not knowing much and then read around kane and its context. things make a lot more sense that way instead of going

Spoiler

wow that sure was some guy’s eyeball. i’m never reading this again

 

far from my favourite play, but i think about it a lot. in-yer-face theatre has its name for a reason.

Crave by Sarah Kane

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

like many other readers, i came for the love monologue and stayed for everything else. 

crave can be considered to be a departure from kane’s other works in terms of tone, but i’d agree with the sentiment that it, like many of her other plays, is fundamentally about love.

it’s so bleak. i love it so much.

Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans

challenging slow-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

if you know what you’re getting into, it’s great, i guess. huysmans makes a lot of hyperspecific references and your experience of the text will also be dependent on the translator, since the feeling of the prose is super important to making it engaging. a ‘novel without a plot’ is a pretty effective way to describe it. des esseintes sucks. i love him

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death