Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

내 휴식과 이완의 해 by Ottessa Moshfegh

172 reviews

readbyjaimes's review against another edition

dark reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book was batshit

That being said I had a LOT of fun reading it. I would read if you love problematic female mc's. She was honestly such an adventure to read from. I debated over my rating for this book for such a long time because I honestly had no idea what I was going to rate this. I found that when I finished the book I had no idea what had just happened, I felt disoriented and I was suddenly just done with the book. But I realized that was the intention, so I finally decided on a 4⭐️. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, and Mental illness

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Death of parent

amelianotthepilot's review against another edition

1.5

I dont understand the hype for this book. I feel like I remember people raving about this a few years ago but I truly found this whole book horribly depressing and meaningless. It gave Holden Caulfield vibes in the worst way. 

I guess you could say its a feminist book representing women in the worst way, women can be horrible too, women contain multitudes. I'm also pretty positive it doesn't pass the reverse Bechdel test (men are rarely mentioned and only in reference to sex). Which I guess is interesting... idk overall I thought it was terribly boring and depressing.

The main character is in her 20s, both her parents have passed away which she says she has come to terms with but clearly still deeply affects her. She has decided she wants to sleep her life away. She goes to a bad therapist complaining of sleep problems so she can get prescribed increasingly wild drugs. She then takes a cocktail of drugs in efforts to fully sleep through the rest of life to varying success. Her therapist is an extremely hippie unhinged bad therapist, her best friend is extremely vain and fake, her deceased mother was an alcoholic and uncaring. Overall every single character was unbearable and annoying and I don't feel like I particularly learned or gained anything from reading it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Cancer, Confinement, Eating disorder, Abortion, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Vomit, Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Rape, Sexual assault, Addiction, Dysphoria, Grief, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Infidelity, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

thaliaw's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Drug use, Terminal illness, Abortion, Suicide, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Addiction, Grief, Drug abuse, Body shaming, Death of parent, Confinement, Alcoholism, Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, and Death

xoopa's review against another edition

challenging dark funny reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Confinement, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, and Addiction

bookluvr222_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Mental illness, Drug abuse, Toxic friendship, Death, Addiction, Drug use, Vomit, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Classism, Body shaming, and Cancer

Minor: Abortion and Confinement

erikalv97's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Terminal illness, Drug use, Addiction, Body horror, Cancer, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Panic attacks/disorders, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Death of parent, Infidelity, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Vomit, and Sexual content

Moderate: Abortion and Violence

beatrizdizon_'s review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ottessa Moshfegh has a hand in concretizing on pages the feeling of emptiness. That incomprehensible, unfathomable, undecipherable feeling. This book consumed me (like MC did with those pills). But honestly, though, the blurb says it all. Don’t expect butterflies and rainbows going into this book. Don’t expect rest and relaxation afterward. Don’t expect a cathartic moment. With every rotting woman is another rotting woman next to her (me). It can never be me though! The pathological people pleaser (Swift 2023) in me cannot handle losing that much control and man did she lose control.

There’s so much to say about MYORAR. The social commentary it touches but it’s not in your face, so it doesn’t sound pretentious. The way our narrator adhered to the very things she criticized. How telling her toxic relationships are, especially with men, about her experiences.

So, I took my time considering if I liked that we readers can predict what will happen to Reva, and I settled on the notion that I do. Maybe it became predictable the moment she had that change, but what matters more is how the narrator reacted in the last chapter which arguably is not predictable. Reva is a star though. Something about her demise juxtaposed with MC’s plan b is poetic in a way.

Moshfegh makes me want to go all “you just don’t get it” type of insufferable. Now my friends and I can be miserable and insufferable together. As if we’re not already doing that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Addiction, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Drug abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, and Alcohol

Moderate: Vomit, Grief, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Infidelity, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual content

Minor: Blood, Classism, Confinement, Death, Pregnancy, Racism, Body shaming, Cancer, Abortion, and Self harm

brightface77's review against another edition

dark funny reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

At the heart of the book is a critique of white women feminism and the illusion of choice feminism as a guiding ethos for your life. Near the beginning of the book marriage is described as being an in home prostitute, so she enters the art world as her career. But there she sees it for what it is as well - something so shallow and fake that she might as well be working on Wall Street. She sees her two choices for what they are - an illusion. But what is her alternative?

It’s set in a time when the internet was not the information highway it is today; where people depended more on their community, professional help, books, movies and tv for support and guidance on how to face challenges. We see her wanting compassion and understanding from her sorority sisters, her parents, her aunt, Reva, her boss, her boyfriend. She turns to everyone in her life, but every time they were more repulsed by her inability to keep it together and run. No one providing any support other than platitudes. 

She turns to professional help and again she comes back empty handed except for some prescription medication. 

With all her options squashed and nothing else presenting itself she decides the best she can do is wait for something better to become magically available. In the end, she is a pick me because that’s what girls like her are told by everyone in their life that they are supposed to be. To her credit, she might not have been a pick me for just men but that life would present the solution like it does in movies. In the meantime she turns to dreams and fantasy which aren’t tied to the same corrupt rules of her reality.

You know that she is aware of the illusion in her choice of stay at home mom or career girl in her last act of rest.

She turned it into art but because she felt trapped in the patriarchal oppression of both choices, she was passive in the creation and left a man to interpret and perceive her.

Without the internet, I wouldn’t know about decentering men, decolonization, decentering capitalism and how widespread systemic oppression is and neither did she. I hope she’s having a moment now in present day, like I am.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use

Moderate: Cancer, Confinement, Chronic illness, and Death of parent

Minor: Abortion and Eating disorder

alyc00per's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Body shaming, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death of parent, and Grief

Minor: Fatphobia, Pregnancy, Drug use, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Toxic friendship, Vomit, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Self harm, Animal cruelty, Blood, Cursing, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Ableism, Abortion, Animal death, Classism, and Toxic relationship

caroisreading's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is framed as dark comedy, but I would say it's absurd realism, if that's even a thing. It's the most beautiful, perfect piece of writing about the most mundane, depressing plot and set of characters.

I can see how purposefully crafted our narrator is -- a blonde, waify model-type with endless funds, apathetic to her loveless family and relationship. She is the beautiful container of everything nasty and mean, addicted to cocktails of prescribed pills. She seethes with hatred any time she encounters her only friend.

This is a sweeping commentary on millennial absurdities, meaningless lives, isolation from society, sexism, pharmaceuticals and other synthetic relief. The desire to be seen, even in insanity. 

You'll like this is you want something trippy, dark, that takes you out of your own self-pity and hatred just by comparison.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Vomit, Confinement, Cancer, Abortion, Alcoholism, and Toxic friendship