Ottessa Moshfegh

"Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility, what could be so terribly wrong?" -- from publisher's description.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

FROM THE MAN BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF EILEEN THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Savage, funny, frequently on the verge of teetering into lunacy... My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a non-negotiable in your holiday carry-on this summer' Vogue It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? Our narrator has many of the advantages of life: Young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, she lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like everything else, by her inheritance. But there is a vacuum at the heart of things, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents in college, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her alleged best friend. Blackly funny, both merciless and compassionate – dangling its legs over the ledge of 9/11 – My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a showcase for the gifts of one of America’s major young writers.

debbie <3

Everyone I knew at school hated me because I was so pretty.

moira

…that it was better to be alone than to be stuck with people who were supposed to love you, yet couldn’t

I wanted to hold on to the house the way you'd hold on to a love letter. It was proof that I had not always been completely alone in this world.

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.

She was beautiful, with all her nerves and all her complicated, circuitous feelings and contradictions and fears. This would be the last time I'd see her in person.

I sensed Reva's misery in the room with me. It was the particular sadness of a young woman who has lost her mother-complex and angry and soft, yet oddly hopeful. I recognized it. But l didn't feel it inside of me. The sadness was just floating around in the air. It became denser in the graininess of shadows.

I wanted to hold on to the house the way you'd hold on to a love letter. It was proof that I had not always been completely alone in this world. But I think I was also holding on to the loss, to the emptiness of the house itself, as though to affirm that it was better to be alone than to be stuck with people who were supposed to love you, yet couldn't.

It's a bit alarming that I agree with the mc's toxic thinking 

Harze

I did crave attention, but I refused to humiliate myself by asking for it. Sleep felt productive. Something was getting sorted out. I knew in my heart—this was, perhaps, the only thing my heart knew back then—that when I'd slept enough, I'd be okay. 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 relaxation.

llikaditoo 

The art world had turned out to be like the stock market, a reflection of political trends and the persuasions of capitalism, fueled by greed and gossip and cocaine.

Rejection, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion.

I was lucky to have my dead parents' money, I knew, but that was also depressing.

juana de arco si estuviera cronicamente online

“Sleep felt productive. Something was getting sorted out. I knew in my heart—this was, perhaps, the only thing my heart knew back then—that when I’d slept enough, I’d be okay. 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 relaxation.”

“I did crave attention, but I refused to humiliate myself by asking for it”

coco

“There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake.”

, I have found, can be the only antidote to delusion.”

“I did crave attention, but I refused to humiliate myself by asking for it. I’d be punished if I showed signs of suffering, I knew. So I was good. I did all the right things. I rebelled in silent ways, 

. 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.”

“In fact, it was the opposite of suicide. My hibernation was self-preservational. I thought that it was going to save my life.”

kayla

And we're all the same nothingness. You and me, just filling the space with nothingness. 

Did they know that glory was mundane? Did they wish they'd crushed those withered grapes between their fingers and spent their days walking through fields of grass or being in love or confessing their delusions to a priest or starving like the hungry souls they were, begging for alms in the city square with some honesty for once? Maybe they'd lived wrongly. Their greatness might have poisoned them…Maybe they understood, in fact, that beauty and meaning had nothing to do with one another. Maybe they lived as real artists knowing all along that there were no pearly gates. Neither creation nor sacrifice could lead a person to heaven.

But these painters of fruit thought only of their own mortality, as though the beauty of their work would somehow soothe their fear of death. There they all were, hanging feckless and candid and meaningless, paintings of things, objects, the paintings themselves just things, objects, withering toward their own inevitable demise.

I felt nothing. I could think of feelings, emotions, but I couldn't bring them up in me. I couldn't even locate where my emotions came from. My brain? It made no sense. Irritation was what I knew best-a heaviness on my chest, a vibration in my neck like my head was revving up before it would rocket off my body. But that seemed directly tied to my nervous system-a physiological response. Was sadness the same kind of thing? Was joy? Was longing? Was love? 

But I think I was also holding on to the loss, to the emptiness of the house itself, as though to affirm that it was better to be alone than to be stuck with people who were supposed to love you, yet couldn’t.

honestly i don’t even know… it just left me very unsettled… i thought it was going to be a lot more interesting.. to the girl in B&N that said this was good… are you okay???

It was odd to live in someone‘s private thoughts

Lili

One of the most overhyped books in Pinterest and Tiktok. Maybe I was expecting too much from this but it's all so mundane, it was an okay read. Didn't change me as a person. Maybe because I'm already too insufferable and depressed to care but overall, it was written well, it was vivid, and realistic. I love that the characters were flawed and weren't perfect, I feel like authors avoid writing those so I'm glad that this book didn't shy away from doing that. It's okay. 

Best celebration of drug use for fun and self medication of the season.

Sebastian Stockmarr

Ik vond het een langdradig boek om doorheen te komen. Want het gaat merendeels over hetzelfde, maar ik moet zeggen dat ik het einde wel bijzonder vond. Ik dacht echt good for her. Maar dit boek beschrijft een leven die ik niet op zo’n manier had kunnen en willen aanpakken. Maakt het hierom wel weer interessant om de gedachtegang van een tegenovergesteld levens perspectief te bekijken. 

vind dat het boek als een soort kunstwerk is geschreven doet me denken aan het kunstwerk ‘my bed’ van Tracy Emin. Dit maakt het hierdoor wel een melancholische fantasie in je hoofd. 

lise jeurissen

Ik vond het een langdradig boek om doorheen te komen. Want het gaat merendeels over hetzelfde, maar ik moet zeggen dat ik het einde wel bijzonder vond. Ik dacht echt good for her. Maar dit boek beschrijft een leven die ik niet op zo’n manier had kunnen en willen aanpakken. Maakt het hierom wel weer interessant om de gedachtegang van een tegenovergesteld levens perspectief te bekijken. 

vind dat het boek als een soort kunstwerk is geschreven doet me denken aan het kunstwerk ‘my bed’ van Tracy Emin. Dit maakt het hierdoor wel een melancholische fantasie in je hoofd. 

bedrot on creative mode ! reading the reviews of this book is a better experience than the book itself but if postgrad doesn’t work out for me i’m treating this as a self help book

felicity hu

From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

A Novel

Insufferable female lead. Not sure if this is satire, but wow, the whole premise of locking yourself in so you could just sleep for 4 months was really intriguing, and I could not stop wondering what would've happened if by the end of her project nothing had changed for her still. It still fascinates me the way people handle grief so differently. The ending was a bit underwhelming, but maybe because I expected more.

elinabel hidalgo 

Ugh I got a lot to say but I won’t say anything lol 
3/5

Isabella Agostino

** spoiler alert **
           I finished this manically, within an evening. 

I appreciate how Moshfegh delivers the sexually explicit content in this satirical novel. The descriptions of intimacy are sterile, void of sensuality, sometimes full of boredom and, at times, desperate. This seems part and parcel the point, treating sex with others and yourself as fleeting, or routine, equal to eating and sleeping. The delivery of intimacy in this novel is where I’m most convinced of it’s genius. It’s in these moments that the reader is made to feel like they, too, are in the haze of a cocktail of semi-legal drugs. 

I’m still working out how I feel about the ending. I get, in a straightforward way, how the whole text is wrapped in a neat bow concerning Reva and what transpires on 9/11 and that the bitter truth of it all is privilege triumphs, effortlessly. I’m mostly feeling a burning sensation as this book left me fueled to continue in my active repulsion of the Girl, Interrupted syndrome. 

On that note, I’m concerned at the categorization of My Year as Sad Girl Lit. The book is so purposefully absurd in its depiction of depression it almost makes me want to join the 5 am club. Job well done / ennui cured! But, seriously.

Kirsten Kim

i suppose i jus dont understand why this book was written

LOL, this book is just straight vibes. The protagonist isn’t likable; actually, none of the characters are, but she is humorous. Most times, you are left wondering, ‘WTH is wrong with this girl?’

onanma okeke

reading this made me miserable. maybe i’m misunderstanding the entire point of it, but truly felt like i was becoming a worse person while i read this. i feel like it’s trying to be profound but failing

camille paradis

reading this made me miserable. maybe i’m misunderstanding the entire point of it, but truly felt like i was becoming a worse person while i read this. i feel like it’s trying to be profound but failing

why did it end on 9/11… 

i don’t know if i hated the protagonist or the writing more but one of them is an insufferable bitch and i think that overrode everything

anya

Ghofran Mustafa 

the protagonist in this one, is a depressed girl trying to isolate herself from everything and everyone.
In her little flat sleeping all the day trying to get into a hibernation..

I felt like the whole book can be contagious, when I got in the middle of it I noticed I'm acting a little like her,sleeping, feeling worn out and everything seems pointless.. I expected smth more but it was a good read to me.

"Don't read it if you feel depressed easily"

Maya 

Honestly now I think that maybe sleeping for a year is exactly what I need…

Patrick Book

I loved this so much. Almost like a combination of American Psycho and Valley of the Dolls, but in the best possible way.

Erin G.

It's early 2000 on New York City's Upper East Side, and the alienation of Moshfegh's unnamed young protagonist from others is nearly complete when she initiates her yearlong siesta, during which time she experiences limited personal interactions. Her parents have died; her relationships with her bulimic best friend Reva, an ex-boyfriend, and her drug-pushing psychiatrist are unwholesome. As her pill-popping intensifies, so does her isolation and determination to leave behind the world's travails. She is also beset by dangerous blackouts induced by a powerful medication.

My year of rest and relaxation

Ryan Mateyk

Our narrator in My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a nameless 24 year old, living off the riches of her dead parents in NYC's Upper East Side. She's spoiled, thin, beautiful, and could have everything she wanted, but decides to spend a year "hibernating," hoping to emerge at the end of the year anew. She's aided by her completely incompetent therapist (I pictured Amy Sedaris' character from Broad City every time she came on the page):
 

She's prescribed more pills then you can imagine, but is frequently interrupted by her "best friend" Reva and on-again off-again boyfriend Trevor. Reva and the narrator's relationship was one of contrasts and was fascinating to read about. Trevor was dominating and abusive, and gave us a bit of a villain (although all four characters were quite frankly, terrible people). 

Despite the plot just being the narrator sleeping, this was entirely engrossing. Despite a cast of characters of four-ish terrible people, it kept me hooked. Moshfegh's writing is just incredible. I'd previously taken Eileen out from the library but didn't get around to reading it - I'll most likely revisit it soon after reading this.

A shocking, hilarious and strangely tender novel about a young woman's experiment in narcotic hibernation, aided and abetted by one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature. Our narrator has many of the advantages of life, on the surface. Young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, she lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like everything else, by her inheritance. But there is a vacuum at the heart of things, and it isn't just the loss of her parents in college, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her alleged best friend. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? This story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs, designed to heal us from our alienation from this world, shows us how reasonable, even necessary, that alienation sometimes is. Blackly funny, both merciless and compassionate - dangling its legs over the ledge of 9/11 - this novel is a showcase for the gifts of one of America's major young writers working at the height of her powers.

Abbie Duggan

Well... wow. This book was an experience. I hated it, which made me love it. The narrator was unbearable to listen to, which made me want to continue following along. It’s equal parts depressing and encouraging; like, at least my life isn’t like hers. There is a layer of trauma that hangs over the whole story, but is never actually touched on, and in that way I think this book is brilliant - it’s perfect in all the things it refuses to be.

Andrea Morales

you were good, i was waiting for you to be great

The story kinda fell too flat for me, I know she’s just sleeping but I did not take away much. Maybe that’s the point. 

jannah

The narrator was extremely unlikeable, more than I've read in a while so props to the author. It was a disturbing, and at times disturbingly realistic read. Heavy and depressing but for some reason kept me hooked, I think it was because I found parts of myself in the narrator; she is living a life without any shame or pretense, she is vain and selfish and lonely and depressed, but she is honest with herself and with her shadow. I found myself rooting for her healing and feeling frustrated at her decisions, but felt for her all the same. Must be hard to live in the center of vanity by being the spectacle of it. Overall an enjoyable, novel read.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

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