Ottessa Moshfegh is good at creating unappealing characters, and the narrator of My Year of Rest and Relaxation is no exception. From a privileged background, pretty and with no need to work, she inwardly mocks everything, including her only friend, Reva. Depressed by the deaths of her cold parents and by being dumped by her cruel boyfriend, Trevor, she decides that she wants to sleep her way into a new life. So, she loads up with a cocktail of prescription drugs, supplied by her batty, pill-pushing psychiatrist.
This novel can be darkly funny, mostly in a cruel poking at Reva’s social ambitions or other characters’ taste, but also poking fun at the modern art scene. Still, I found it both oddly fascinating and distasteful, despite a more positive ending.
This novel is set in the early 2000’s and works its way resolutely to 9/11.
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Hm… oddly fascinating? Hm… not sure. Thanks though!
Definitely not one of my favorites, though.
I kind of picked that up from what you said (or more for what you didn’t say)!
I have enjoyed both of Moshfegh’s novels. I like the complete weirdness of them. I wouldn’t want to read weird books all the time, but they liven things up every once in a while. 🙂