A review by ursulagaylewin
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

2.0

this was its most interesting when the narrator thought back to her relationship with her parents and, in spite of her otherwise never thinking of or feeling for other people, betrayed grief. this is the only time she feels alive – it's honest, poignant, even brutal at points. but even if the best prose i'd ever read in my life were slapped into the middle of this book, it would still seem overpriced. and this was still far from even being 'very good' prose.

it's very aimless and anticlimactic. i get that it's a satire on privilege, appearances, education, high-class art education at that, and therefore culture too – but what it does right has been done even better a hundred million times before and without letting you down the way this book does, especially if you liked its premise as much as i did