Almost a month has elapsed since I finished this book, and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about it. To enumerate all of my thoughts in a single review sounds difficult, but assigning a number at the end seems even harder. Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation is simultaneously deserving of 1 and 5-star ratings.
For starters, this book gave me a vivid illustration of depression’s effects on the human condition. Even though I started reading knowing it was fiction, the strong imagery and poignant descriptions of the protagonist’s thoughts were dark and felt nothing short of real. Moshfegh did a fantastic job of capturing the protagonist’s condition and did not try to hold back on any of her inner thoughts. I tend to have an issue where I discredit shocking events in fiction books on the basis that “none of that ever happened”, but there were plenty of times throughout My Year of Rest and Relaxation when I had to double-check that this story wasn’t real.
I tend to read non-fiction, so I’m generally accustomed to books having a lack of structure or generally cohesive narrative; however, I never thought the least organized book I’d ever read would be fictitious. Instead of a traditional plot, the reader gets what can be best described as a subset of the unnamed protagonist’s thought-stream as she navigates her world. There were times when it felt like I was in a thought loop as I turned through these pages; I frequently wondered if I had somehow turned my page backward and started rereading the chapter prior. The further I got into the book, the less this happened as I realized repetition was one of the tools used to convey the protagonist’s condition to the reader.
Even when excluding the protagonist’s depressive side, there seems to be nothing enjoyable in the book. Almost every character has obvious flaws or shortcomings, the majority of the book is set in the same apartment, and whenever something interesting does happen, we don’t get to hear about it because the protagonist was unconscious the entire time. Mixed feelings aside, I would be lying by omission if I didn’t mention how quickly I finished reading this. Despite the lack of plot or general structure, I just couldn’t quite put this book down. It was a plotless page-turner, and I was thoroughly entertained from start to end.
Anna, I’m not sure when I’ll call you for another book recommendation again, but you’ve set the bar high and low.
Rating: 3/5