If I had to compare this book to a movie scene, I would compare it to the scene in Twilight where Bella sits in her room depressed and watches the months go by slowly. The books âMy Year of Rest and Relaxationâ by Ottessa Moshfegh follows a nameless character and her plan to sleep through an entire year of her life. With the help of (too many) sleeping pills and a too willing doctor, she is determined to skip a year and wake up refreshed and ready to begin her life.
This book was uncomfortable in the best kind of way. The story is disturbing and annoying and that is exactly what it was meant to do. It was refreshing and interesting to have a main character that you donât necessarily like or root for. If you enjoy books that make you feel safe and comfy, it may be hard to stomach this one. Moshfegh often writes about terrible people but she does it so brilliantly. She highlights the parts of the world that many books tend to ignore. A book like this is a nice refresher that life isnât always perfect and thatâs normal.
I think the idea of someone being so tired of life that they decide to just sleep it off is really relatable right now. Weâre all tired! The characters that interact with the narrator, such as her enabling âdoctorâ, her best friend that she consistently shit talks, and Trever, a toxic ex that swings back in and out of the story, perfectly highlight all of her fatal flaws and help the reader to truly peel back the thick layer covering our narratorâs true thoughts and feelings. Our main character has nauseating habits that may repulse the reader and that is exactly what it is intended to do.
This book tackled the topic of mental illnesses like depression in ways that arenât often depicted. Where sleeping is the only thing that can make you feel productive, where shutting the whole world out sounds like a good idea. Moshfegh perfectly tapped into this mindset and it made for a book that you canât help but fly through, trying to understand and grasp exactly what this young woman is in need of. This book took me into the hazy fog of depression and made me feel as if I had also been taking extreme doses of heavy sleeping drugs, and by that I mean that Moshfegh made it seem as if I had gone through this âyear of rest and relaxationâ right alongside our narrator.
