My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Alright, let's get this over with. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Goodreads Stats

Why I Read This Book/How I Heard About It

I hate to say it, but this was my first disappointing "Unofficial John Green Recommendation". As I've said, I do these John Green recommendations completely blind, so when I start reading, I have zero clue what the book is about. No summary or anything.

Basic Summary

OK, I hate to be a hack. Usually, I like to create my own summaries for this blog. However, you have got to see this back-of-book summary because it is such a glowing review:

"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."

First Impressions

*Record Scratch Sound Effect*

Excuse me, WHAT? Our heroine? I think not. How can you have a heroine who does nothing? Blackly funny? Um, ok. I guess I don't understand humor. I guess if you consider exhausting and never ending sarcasm humor, sure.

I don't know, man. Seems like a spoiled millennial wasting her life. I just didn't see much else in the pages of this book. I know it's harsh. I can't imagine how difficult it is to write a book, especially one this depressing. I hope the author feels better after getting all of this out of her system, I guess?

Final Thoughts

I kept waiting for something to happen. I thought, "Perhaps it will be like Never Let Me Go...a slow start, with a huge twist at the end!" No. It wasn't. There was no twist. There was no big event, no character growth at all. And, to be honest, the main character wasn't even likeable. There wasn't even anything that made you want to root for her.

I don't know, guys...maybe I'm dumb or something, but to me, it felt like literally nothing happened in this book. It was just a lazy person complaining about their life and taking a butt ton of drugs to forget about their mental health issues. I just don't get it...all the accolades. I don't get it.

Rating on Goodreads

I rated this book 1 out of 5 stars.

My rating method:

• I rarely rate books 5 stars. I save this for the absolute best books I've read. You know the ones...the ones that you can't get out of your head, even after you've finished them. The ones you think about for weeks afterwards.

• If a book is really, really good, I'll give it 4 stars. If you see a 4-star rating from me, I'd definitely recommend it to you to read.

• If it's just OK, it gets 3 stars. Basically, it means I could take it or leave it. I'd probably read it again because it wasn't terrible. But not like a favorite or anything.

• If I rate it 1 or 2 stars, I would not recommend anyone read it. It either didn't hold my interest or I couldn't relate to the characters/plot.