My Year of Rest and Relaxation Book Review

- Laia.B

We have all walked into an English bookstore and seen its horrendous “#BookTok” section, riddled with poorly written YA romance and recycled storylines. It is somewhat rare that an actually good novel finds its way there, but Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2018 novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation managed to not only have a strong resurgence in popularity this year, but also captivate a critical audience. This book is definitely not for everyone; its violent language, and often repulsive images may not be suited for the average adolescent reader (or even the average adult reader), but I firmly believe it is a work of art.

This storyfollows a wealthy white woman who sets out to sleep for a year with the help of a gradually increasing dose of prescription drugs. The novel is very blunt, very straight-to-the-point, and extremely jarring. The raw depiction of such a flawed character makes for an extremely interesting read. She incessantly looks down upon those she encounters, particularly her closest companions, and even compares herself to Kate Moss.She affirms her wealth and selfishness, aware that she is a “bad person”, for lack of a better term, but does not seem to care, incredibly self-aware in an almost repulsive but compelling way.

This completely unlikable protagonist leads us to reflect on how authors choose their characters, and if this book could have a negative influence on naive and easily influenced readers. Many young people, especially with the rise of face-level, basic critiques of media (or even lack of media literacy) on social media, tend to take things at face value, not examining things further than what they see. Protagonists are classically likable, an incarnation of what one should striveto be. Young readers are often greatly influenced by the media they consume, trying to take on characteristics of the characters they deem “cool”, so could writing horrible, problematic characters negatively affect the naive? On the other hand, why should authors care about how their book could possibly be interpreted, especially when its subject is as compelling and original as the book at hand?

The way Moshfegh herself affirms her genius is also very interesting to examine. Could her offensive characters be a sort of “self-insert”, a way for her to expressthe hatred society prohibits her from making explicit? She refers to her own writing as “like seeing Kate Moss [defecate]”. Her fascination with disgusting, taboo topics is bewitching, I have yet to see another author write so vulgarly, and yet, so beautifully.

The novel came out in 2018, and although, after its resurgence in online popularity, may now be considered a basic, so-called “female manipulator” work, a recent rereading of it inspired me, not to go on a year-long bender, but to put my thoughts into words.

Although I haven’t read any other of Moshfegh’s works,I definitely plan to in the future and urge you to read this wonderful novel!

“The notion of my future suddenly snapped into focus: it didn 't exist yet. I was making it, standing there, breathing, fixing the air around my body with stillness, trying to capture something—a thought, I guess—as though such a thing were possible, as though I believed in the delusion described in those paintings—that time could be contained, held captive.

― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation