Our unnamed narrator is a beautiful Columbia graduate in her mid-twenties. Thanks to an inheritance, she has everything she needs or could ask for, except a different life. She’s not just unhappy, she’s severely depressed, so she devises a plan: with the aid of a crackpot therapist who isn’t afraid to prescribe literally any drug that exists, she’s going to “sleep [herself] into a new life.”
First line: 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.
This is it. This is the physical book I want to annotate. I can’t, because it’s a library book, and I’m honestly kind of devastated. My first thought after I finished the book and processed my actual book thoughts was how the fuck am I going to write a review of this book? I loved it, but I wasn’t sure how to write about a book in which the non-spoiler parts consisted mostly of sleep.
I’ll start with the narrator herself. She’s incredibly selfish, a horrible friend, and she doesn’t care about anyone around her. But she doesn’t seem to care about herself either. She’s self-destructive and makes no effort to take care of herself in even the simplest of ways. She’s not exactly a likeable character, and yet, I found myself liking her. Maybe even loving her. I don’t behave the way she does (I promise!) but I somehow understood her. And anyway, her friend Reva did sound kind of annoying.
Though a couple things might not have been 100% believable, the book felt like an incredibly honest memoir, and I enjoyed that aspect a whole lot. I found myself relating to some of the narrator’s thoughts and experiences in some abstract, some more concrete ways. She said some things I could have written myself and who knows, maybe that’s why I liked her as much as I did.
I love the way My Year of Rest and Relaxation feels like it’s about nothing and something at the same time. A young woman sleeps through a year of her life, so, yeah, nothing really happens. But sometimes, she wakes up, and in a haze, she goes out for supplies, or to see her therapist for prescription refills. She calls her horrible sometimes-boyfriend. Her friend drops by. She reflects on old memories. The between-sleep content provided a surprising amount of substance for a book about a woman who wants a year of nothingness.
I was satisfied with the ending Moshfegh gave our narrator, but I don’t feel I can expand on that without spoilers. I haven’t read any other reviews, but I’ve heard reception was kind of mixed on this book and I understand why, but I’d absolutely recommend it to anyone who doesn’t take issue with characters deemed unlikeable.
Little Vermo Reviews 