My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

By Ottessa Moshfegh

  • Release Date: 2018-07-10
  • Genre: Literary Fiction
Score: 4
4
From 1,467 Ratings
$1.99 On itunes Buy on Amazon

Description

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.

Reviews

  • adamantly superficial, but what isn’t these days?

    5
    By abigailllc
    through dark satire and an existential analysis of capitalism, ambivalence and the idea of middle/upper class vs the world; the persona written for this character, who is nameless and understood only by her thoughts which grapple between collectivism and individualism, make this a brilliant exposition on life and wakefulness in a society that does everything it’s capable of to avoid touching grass. the last two chapters are beautifully written, yet they do nothing to redeem this self centered character who is still just as self centered. however the last two chapters powerfully acknowledges our hubris and selective self awareness as humans, with a juxtaposition of grace and humility needed to appreciate life in it’s cycle of creation and destruction.

  • Darkly beautiful

    5
    By BDH - Jax
    So well written and thought provoking. Not for a feel good easy read, but something to take your time with and think about.

  • Groundbreaking

    5
    By HappyDragon7823
    Probably the best book about New York and the terminal disease that is being and becoming a “New Yorker” since Taipei by Tao Lin. Thematically deep as Snow White’s slumber. The execution of the author is excellent, she is clearly a generational talent.

  • Ate

    5
    By kaylendez
    Ms otessa ate

  • New favorite

    5
    By cnyoung2
    Read this over a long weekend while sick - it is depressing, hilarious, infuriating, satirical in the best of ways.

  • A train wreck of a book

    3
    By cathy_cristina
    I have mixed feelings about My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The book is both bizarrely fascinating and disturbing. I couldn’t put it down. The writing is razor sharp and lucid. I despised the main character though until the last two chapters. She loathes the world and in turn, herself. This is the first book I’ve read by Moshfegh. I’m not sure that I will read another. But like a trainwreck, it’s hard to look away and her book was hard for me to put down.

  • Don’t know what to think

    3
    By KC*********
    I read the reviews that this book was funny. It is not. At all. The main character is honestly a terrible person and I loathed her but the ending redeemed itself in what I would call an appalling way. It was entirely telegraphed though and no real surprise to it. Her friend was an interesting character but reading about some beautiful, self-centered rich girl who needs to escape her horrible life of designer clothes and art galleries was off putting. I give the author credit for creating such a horrible person. But there was no depth at all to her spoiled state of escapism and honestly impossible drug use that will kill any normal human.

  • Unapologetically Uninspiring

    2
    By Irsula
    A novel about someone in the mood to feel nothing for a time, with no thought provoking end. Not the worst read but was as much a waste of my life as it was the heroine’s. Please don’t.

  • strange

    4
    By rora🎆
    a strange book for women who are truly ill, but honestly this book was a good read and really fun… plus i have an idea now

  • I liked it

    4
    By AngryByrddd
    Maybe more because of the writing than the plot, but I did like it. Mostly because it felt very real. I feel like these characters exist IRL, which is why it’s sad. But also reassuring, since I’m nothing like them. Their friendship was depressing and I feel this is common. Basically, this is the opposite of what I want in life. So, if you look at it like that, it makes you feel better!

Comments

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