My Year of Rest and Relaxation
by Ottessa Moshfegh
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Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Amazon,Vice, Bustle, The New York Times, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, The AV Club, & AudibleA New York Times Bestseller
“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 show more 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. show less
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RidgewayGirl Both novels share razor-sharp writing, a deeply unsympathetic protagonist and an eye for the less savory parts of daily existence.
20
k8_not_kate Another one about a young woman seemingly bent on self destruction, well written.
Member Reviews
The narrator has it all, from the outside. She's young, thin, beautiful, and has inherited wealth. That she's a miserable wreck, cold and hateful, is mostly hidden from other people. She barely interacts with anyone other than college friend Reva, the only person who seeks the narrator's company, but in these encounters the reader wishes Reva would run and never come back.
The narrator, severely depressed, decides that sleep is the answer. She finds a terrible psychiatrist who is easily fooled into prescribing enough sleep medication to kill an elephant (these scenes are actually hilarious), and spends the year barely doing anything other than sleeping, watching Whoopi Goldberg movies and terrorizing an ex-boyfriend.
It's a page-turner. show more The narrator is an awful person, but through her backstory, we find that she was raised by selfish, neglectful parents and never learned empathy. Her desire to sleep for a year as a way of healing her painful loneliness is broken by the presence of Reva, someone so emotionally dependent on others that she even seeks out the approval of someone as cruel as the narrator.
The story has startlingly graphic sexual and scatological passages throughout, contrasting what you'd expect from a story of someone who wants to be left alone to sleep for weeks at a time, and the ending is bizarre, sad, and somewhat unexpected. I see that the book gets some bad reviews, but I found it to be unique and well-written. show less
The narrator, severely depressed, decides that sleep is the answer. She finds a terrible psychiatrist who is easily fooled into prescribing enough sleep medication to kill an elephant (these scenes are actually hilarious), and spends the year barely doing anything other than sleeping, watching Whoopi Goldberg movies and terrorizing an ex-boyfriend.
It's a page-turner. show more The narrator is an awful person, but through her backstory, we find that she was raised by selfish, neglectful parents and never learned empathy. Her desire to sleep for a year as a way of healing her painful loneliness is broken by the presence of Reva, someone so emotionally dependent on others that she even seeks out the approval of someone as cruel as the narrator.
The story has startlingly graphic sexual and scatological passages throughout, contrasting what you'd expect from a story of someone who wants to be left alone to sleep for weeks at a time, and the ending is bizarre, sad, and somewhat unexpected. I see that the book gets some bad reviews, but I found it to be unique and well-written. show less
Moshfegh has written misanthropic fiction in which her wretched characters suffer deeply set during the 1850s (McGlue), the 1950s (Eileen), the current day (Homesick for Another World), and now that nightmarish period of American meaninglessness between the end of the Cold War and 9/11, when all we really had anymore was peace and prosperity. The unnamed narrator of this novel is the least wretched so far in material terms - she's a wealthy heiress and beautiful as a supemodel - but that means little. She'll hold her own in existential ennui.
Her career in the arts world is a joke because the art world is a joke, completely colonized by capitalism (“Stacey Bloom had started a magazine called Kun(s)t about ‘women in the arts,’ show more mostly profiles of rich art-party girls who were starting their own fashion lines or opening galleries or nightclubs or starring in indie movies. Her father was the president of Citibank.”). Her parents were always cold to her and now they're both dead. She dislikes her only friend. She decides to use prescription medication to sleep most of a year away, hoping to emerge a changed person on the inside (but not the outside - "I was born into privilege," I told Ping Xi. "I am not going to squander that. I'm not a moron.").
Does it work? Moshfegh suggested that she might be prepared to believe in the possibility of transformation from miserableness to happiness in Eileen, as that character narrated her story decades afterwards the story's events from evidently a much better place. Here she seems ambivalent. The story ends on 9/11, with the image of a jumper falling to her death from the Towers: "I am overcome by awe, not because she looks like Reva, and I think it's her, almost exactly her, and not because Reva and I had been friends, or because I'll never see her again, but because she is beautiful. There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake."
9/11 as an awakening moment has been used a lot, of course, but usually it's meant in an active, improving way. Here it's referenced using the image of someone just becoming aware moments before plummeting to their death, so... pluses and minuses, I suppose. Pluses and minuses. show less
Her career in the arts world is a joke because the art world is a joke, completely colonized by capitalism (“Stacey Bloom had started a magazine called Kun(s)t about ‘women in the arts,’ show more mostly profiles of rich art-party girls who were starting their own fashion lines or opening galleries or nightclubs or starring in indie movies. Her father was the president of Citibank.”). Her parents were always cold to her and now they're both dead. She dislikes her only friend. She decides to use prescription medication to sleep most of a year away, hoping to emerge a changed person on the inside (but not the outside - "I was born into privilege," I told Ping Xi. "I am not going to squander that. I'm not a moron.").
Does it work? Moshfegh suggested that she might be prepared to believe in the possibility of transformation from miserableness to happiness in Eileen, as that character narrated her story decades afterwards the story's events from evidently a much better place. Here she seems ambivalent. The story ends on 9/11, with the image of a jumper falling to her death from the Towers: "I am overcome by awe, not because she looks like Reva, and I think it's her, almost exactly her, and not because Reva and I had been friends, or because I'll never see her again, but because she is beautiful. There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake."
9/11 as an awakening moment has been used a lot, of course, but usually it's meant in an active, improving way. Here it's referenced using the image of someone just becoming aware moments before plummeting to their death, so... pluses and minuses, I suppose. Pluses and minuses. show less
I remember being intrigued by reviews of this when it came out it 2018, but it took a friend handing me a physical copy to finally read it. I wish I'd done it earlier - I loved this book! The protagonist (I just realized I don't think we ever find out her name) is in her mid-20s in 2000, living in NYC. Her parents have died and she's tired and depressed. She has a loser boyfriend who doesn't love her, a boring job as a receptionist at an art gallery, and plenty of inheritance money. So she decides to sleep for a year to reset herself. She finds the comically worst psychiatrist ever, who can't even remember that her parents are dead from session to session, and prescribes her any medication she wants. She takes cocktails of pills, show more drinking coffee in between blackouts, and stays in her apartment for most of a year. Her only friend, Reva, is her only visitor and contact with the outside world.
The writing in this book is fantastic. It's darkly humorous, and captures the pointlessness of modern life without human connection perfectly. Of course, also hanging over the book throughout is that it's 2000 and she's living in NYC, so 9/11 is ever-present.
I just really loved this. Maybe because I was the same age as the protagonist in 2000. I don't usually like novels about rich, sad people who have plenty of ways to be happy, but this really worked for me. I can't wait to read [Eileen] and anything else [[Ottessa Moshfegh]] writes. show less
The writing in this book is fantastic. It's darkly humorous, and captures the pointlessness of modern life without human connection perfectly. Of course, also hanging over the book throughout is that it's 2000 and she's living in NYC, so 9/11 is ever-present.
I just really loved this. Maybe because I was the same age as the protagonist in 2000. I don't usually like novels about rich, sad people who have plenty of ways to be happy, but this really worked for me. I can't wait to read [Eileen] and anything else [[Ottessa Moshfegh]] writes. show less
Mourning her dead parents and live sometimes-boyfriend, a young woman holes up in her apartment, sleeping, taking vast amounts of pills and bingeing movies. She has one friend. “I was both relieved and irritated when Reva showed up, the way you’d feel if someone interrupted you in the middle of suicide.” “She couldn’t or simply wouldn’t understand why I wanted to sleep all the time.”
She and Reva have an odd friendship that sometimes feeds on mutual misery. “It made me a little jealous to think of Reva being depressed and dependent on anyone but me.”
She has possibly the world’s worst doctor, basically a human pill dispenser. At one point she thinks she loves the pill doctor because the thought of losing her brings show more “a tinge of sadness,” which is more than she’s allowed herself to feel in some time. “There was no shortage of psychiatrists in New York City, but finding one as irresponsible and weird as Dr. Tuttle would be a challenge I didn’t think I could handle.”
She crafts odd combinations of pills like recipes, takes them, and watches the same movie three times maybe. She sleepwalks, sleepshops, sleep everythings. She needs the process, and the year, to come back to life. An extraordinarily good book, and caustically funny. show less
She and Reva have an odd friendship that sometimes feeds on mutual misery. “It made me a little jealous to think of Reva being depressed and dependent on anyone but me.”
She has possibly the world’s worst doctor, basically a human pill dispenser. At one point she thinks she loves the pill doctor because the thought of losing her brings show more “a tinge of sadness,” which is more than she’s allowed herself to feel in some time. “There was no shortage of psychiatrists in New York City, but finding one as irresponsible and weird as Dr. Tuttle would be a challenge I didn’t think I could handle.”
She crafts odd combinations of pills like recipes, takes them, and watches the same movie three times maybe. She sleepwalks, sleepshops, sleep everythings. She needs the process, and the year, to come back to life. An extraordinarily good book, and caustically funny. show less
I loved this quirky and unique book. The narrator has decided to sleep herself into a new person, burying her trauma for good and superficial lifestyle. While the story could easily have become dull, repetitive and underwhelming, Moshfegh manages to stir the reader's curiosity through increasingly bizarre and intriguing situations where worlds blend. Humour keeps the book light and entertaining (Dr Tuttles is probably my favourite character).
While the story can be read at face value, it also presents interesting themes: how, as a society, we numb ourselves to pain, how voyeuristic and superficial we are, but also how there are paths to redemption.
While the story can be read at face value, it also presents interesting themes: how, as a society, we numb ourselves to pain, how voyeuristic and superficial we are, but also how there are paths to redemption.
Push through your crushing depression, add inner self-loathing to the world extant, layer your identity with alienation of living in NYC, and eventually you seek escape, your own destruction, or non-existence.
Were all the characters unlikeable? Only in the mind of the protagonist. I thought the author's portrayal of major depression and drug induced psychosis was fairly good. Most people have to depend upon a job to survive, so they must cope with mental illness or live on the streets in NYC, thus they gain sympathy, however false. (That sympathy runs thin in NYC. It's overwhelming.) Our protagonist doesn't have a lack of money as a problem. Material wealth seems to fall into her hands. Moshfegh is able to display the protagonist's show more related addictions and symptoms in any way she likes. Sleep is an escape. The more obsessive your thoughts become, the more elusive sleep.
Throughout, our protagonist admired the courage of people who took their own lives rather than waiting for death to find them. She wanted the big sleep, but didn't have the courage. She thinks Reva made a big choice on 9-11. The protagonist watches the video of who she thinks is Reva falling to her death on repeat, but she never calls Reva to confirm she is truly gone. Our protagonist hasn't really changed.
I loved this book. Especially the funny bits. show less
Were all the characters unlikeable? Only in the mind of the protagonist. I thought the author's portrayal of major depression and drug induced psychosis was fairly good. Most people have to depend upon a job to survive, so they must cope with mental illness or live on the streets in NYC, thus they gain sympathy, however false. (That sympathy runs thin in NYC. It's overwhelming.) Our protagonist doesn't have a lack of money as a problem. Material wealth seems to fall into her hands. Moshfegh is able to display the protagonist's show more related addictions and symptoms in any way she likes. Sleep is an escape. The more obsessive your thoughts become, the more elusive sleep.
I loved this book. Especially the funny bits. show less
I initially really loved this and had given it a 5 star review. Then I read a comment about how this books screams privilege, decided to give it a 4 star. Then realized that’s the point. There’s an obvious “privilege” here and as a black girl who sees privilege and injustice in everything without wanting to, it was so obvious but didn’t effect the way I read this. Regardless, this is good work.
I will never quite agree with people who say this isn’t interesting though. When the plot wasn’t, the language and thought process of the main character was. There was never a seemingly “dull” moment.
I will never quite agree with people who say this isn’t interesting though. When the plot wasn’t, the language and thought process of the main character was. There was never a seemingly “dull” moment.
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"A beautiful 24-year-old gallery assistant wants nothing more than to sleep — not for a rejuvenating eight hours, but 'full-time,' like a hibernating bear or an aspiring narcoleptic. Her goal is to sleep, not perchance to dream, but to 'drown out my thoughts and judgments, since the constant barrage made it hard not to hate everyone and everything.'"
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Author Information
20+ Works 12,478 Members
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer. She was awarded the Plimpton Prize for her stories in The Paris Review and granted a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is currently a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford. Her title My Year of Rest and Relaxation made the bestseller list in 2018. (Bowker Author Biography)
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Distinctions
Amazon.com Best Books (Top 20 – 2018)
The Guardian Book of the Day (2018-07-11)
Work Relationships
Has as a reference guide/companion
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- Original title
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- Original publication date
- 2018
- People/Characters
- Reva; Ping Xi; Trevor; Dr. Tuttle
- Important places
- New York, New York, USA
- Important events
- September 11 Attacks
- Epigraph
- If you're smart or rich or lucky
Maybe you'll beat the laws of man
But the inner laws of spirit
And the outer laws of nature
No man can
No, no man can . . .
"The Wolf that Lives in Lindsey," Joni Mitchell - Dedication
- For Luke. My one. My only.
- First words
- Whenever I woke up, night or day, I'd shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a bodega that never closed.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 4,876
- Popularity
- 2,875
- Reviews
- 195
- Rating
- (3.58)
- Languages
- 14 — Catalan, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 49
- ASINs
- 11