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

5.0

Reading this book is like what my friend said to me once, you just can't stop looking at a burning car crash. And I couldn't look away. I wanted to keep on reading until I finally know what had happened after she finished brain-washing, mind-starving sabbatical. I was frightened, shocked, and unabashedly shaken; both, in a good way and a bad way. Good because I can't help but envy her. First, that she even has enough resources to do this (well, she's rich); and second, who wouldn't want to stop working for a while? Do nothing but somehow still achieve something or get that thing that you want or, in the case of our main character, something she needed, badly. Bad, because when I realized the literal logistics of how she was going to do this, I couldn't believe it. At the end of the character's mind-sabbatical I found that there was more to ponder on aside from how her year of rest and relaxation ended. I wanted to put different pieces of the story together and reflect more on the journey itself even though the end was quite satisfying, in my opinion. In the same way that I waited a whole year to get a copy of this book; behind all my rants, raves, and frustrations--you sometimes need to reach the end of something first, before coming into terms with the fact that, everything worked out fine, after all. (Or did it?)