My Year of Rest and Relaxation: A Novel
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Vice, Bustle, The New York Times, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, The AV Club, & Audible
A New York Times Bestseller • New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
“One of the most compelling protagonists modern fiction has offered in years: a loopy, quietly furious pillhead whose Ambien ramblings and Xanaxed b*tcheries somehow wend their way through sad and funny and strange toward something genuinely profound.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Darkly hilarious . . . [Moshfegh’s] the kind of provocateur who makes you laugh out loud while drawing blood.” —Vogue
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 New York Times Bestseller • New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
“One of the most compelling protagonists modern fiction has offered in years: a loopy, quietly furious pillhead whose Ambien ramblings and Xanaxed b*tcheries somehow wend their way through sad and funny and strange toward something genuinely profound.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Darkly hilarious . . . [Moshfegh’s] the kind of provocateur who makes you laugh out loud while drawing blood.” —Vogue
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.
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Community Reviews
That...was...an adventure.
I think I'm still processing, but I did WANT to finish it. It's a solid 3.5 stars & leaning towards 4.
But I'm still... ... ...
I think I'm still processing, but I did WANT to finish it. It's a solid 3.5 stars & leaning towards 4.
But I'm still... ... ...
I really enjoyed the first 3rd of the book. The middle was a little slow and repetitive, but it aligned with what the main character was experiencing, which makes the slow pace forgivable for me. However, the end was so odd, as if the author was provided a prompt that stated “write a story based on [spoiler image]” and the rest of the book expanded from there and this made the whole thing feel forced to fit the final part of the story. This pushed it from 4 stars to 3.
Overall, it was still an enjoyable read. It was engaging for the most part and it made me ponder the realities of depression (though the main character was extremely privileged and presented an unrealistic ability to not need to work while coping with mental illness).
Overall, it was still an enjoyable read. It was engaging for the most part and it made me ponder the realities of depression (though the main character was extremely privileged and presented an unrealistic ability to not need to work while coping with mental illness).
The saddest story that I ever read. If this is the meaning of life for some people, I understand their pain…
5/5 stars
I feel like this is a book of extremes. You either like it or you don't.The girls that get it, get it. The girls that don't, don't. It has a pretty interesting premise: what if, with the help of prescription drugs, you could sleep away a whole year and all of your problems and trauma? That's exactly what the protagonist of this book attempts. She should be happy. She's blonde, skinny and rich but she refuses to do the work to heal herself from her trauma. Enter an excentric psychiatrist with the power to prescribe any drug known to man and you have a very weird book.
If you're not into the whole sad mean woman this book is not for you. I happen to like it quite a lot, plus this book is written with the kind of humor I like. I was laughing quite a bit at first and just that made this an immediate 4/5 stars. It was the end, when the book finally tackled the event that was being referenced all through it with a lot of heart and surprising tenderness that brought this up to a 5/5 stars. Odd book that made me feel weirdly at peace with the world.
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.
I feel like this is a book of extremes. You either like it or you don't.
If you're not into the whole sad mean woman this book is not for you. I happen to like it quite a lot, plus this book is written with the kind of humor I like. I was laughing quite a bit at first and just that made this an immediate 4/5 stars. It was the end, when the book finally tackled the event that was being referenced all through it with a lot of heart and surprising tenderness that brought this up to a 5/5 stars. Odd book that made me feel weirdly at peace with the world.
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