Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

184 reviews

astridrv's review against another edition

What a fever dream of a book. The concept worked, although I get reservations about the ending. The writing is enthralling, the narrator has a really strong voice and is clearly defined in all her layers and murkiness. It is a cold book (and do check the content warnings because it’s a lot), but also a little bit tender. It made me think, all along, may I never be or feel like that. But the narrator is aware of her world, of the game of rich and pretty she’s both winning and losing at. Finishing this book feels like walking out of a movie into daylight. I’m left engulfed, squinting, having spent a few hours in a life so distant from mine it can only have grown my empathy.

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taylorbrooke's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.0

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sweet_rain's review against another edition

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funny reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

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marns20_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

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

5.0

Honestly? This is the most UNHINGED book I’ve ever read and probably will ever read??? but I loved it sooo much and I can’t even tell you why. Every 5 pages I literally said ‘Wtaf’ to myself out loud. It’s truly bizarre, in the best way. There were so many moments that you couldn’t help but laugh that had me thinking omg am I crazy too, I definitely shouldn’t be laughing at that. Her perplexing friendship with Reva was my favourite thing to read. The complex feeling of loving someone but not liking them, your friendship evolving past having nothing in common anymore because you have both grown separately yet you are still inextricably linked by history alone, not being able to let them go even though they’re no good for you and vice versa.

The weird candid way she describes her parents and her relationship with them throws you off balance because she says really deep and personal things but in a detached, emotionless way that keeps you at arms length almost like when someone is crying but they don’t want you to hug or comfort them and you just stand there awkwardly staring at them. As unrelatable as the main character is (white, rich, privileged) her experience of the lethargy and apathy towards life was very relatable. Her crazy experiment is probably something we have all wished we could do at some point. I know I have. At parts, I found myself desperately rooting for her experiment to work, for her to be able to pull herself out of her despair and then other times you really couldn’t ignore what a truly terrible person she was, terrible friend she was. This struck a chord thinking about how mental health affects your relationships, your inability to show up or want to show up for people, it makes you irritable and mean, only willing to do the bare minimum despite how much you hate it or how much you love them. The complex nature of the human condition

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lauchpferd's review against another edition

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dark 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

1.5

!Spoilers!

I don't know why this book exists, this should've been a short story and even then the plot is extremely flimsy. It took me 6 months to finally finish because of how much it drags it's feet. Most of the characters are completely unlikable and don't change or develop at all over the course of the story.

The main character does a 180 in her personality once the author realises the book is almost over but there are no in-story justifications for it. Reva dying is cliché, of course the best friend has to die for the betterment of the main character. Using 9/11 and her subsequently buying a new DVR to record it as a metaphor just seems crass, as does the very last line: "There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake."

While the occasional sentence or image might be interesting, (the arctic fox freezing to death) it's immediately undermined by whatever comparison to genitals the author can come up with.

The book was recommended to me for being "deep" and "real" but I'd say it's the exact opposite.

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zenizage's review against another edition

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dark medium-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

3.75

Having literally read this within two days and just finished it (immediate thoughts before having let it simmer): My main problem with this book was that I had heard it was funny and it said it was funny on the back (or someone was quoted saying it was funny) and as I was reading, it kept creeping into my head why the hell people thought this was funny.
I found the depiction of the main protagonist's depression and the people (ab)using her razor sharp at times. Maybe it was borderline triggering for me. But that being said: it captures depression and the feeling of having no self-worth (and not even having the will to fight for it) quite well!

I am not American and the extreme use of medication was ... maybe even most frustrating to me. Maybe I didn't get the "joke" because I did not know anything about the drugs she was using?

Is it a good thing that her plan appears to work in the end? That she "slept" her way out of it? I don't know.

Maybe the point of the book for me is to take a closer look at myself, because I at times found it hard to have compassion for the main protagonist, who was clearly suffering, but instead was frustrated with her and her numbness and her having given herself up and how she treats other people. For someone who has had to deal with depression herself that is almost shocking.

I did also not at all notice that the main character is in fact unnamed, I read it somewhere after I finished it. I find that astonishing. It did not bother me whatsoever that she didn't have a name, I didn't even know.

...
Edit: After Giving it some thought–is the protagonist something of a modern day Daisy Buchanan?

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