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A review by curlyhairbibliophile
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
1.0
I wanted to like this. I really did. I was eager to read My Year of Rest and Relaxation because of all the hype I heard about it from TikTok and general word-of-mouth. I found myself continuing to read because I wanted to like it. However, this was atrocious. I was shocked by how blatant the racism, fatphobia, xenophobia, and ableism were in this book.
The narrator is supposed to be unlikeable. I get that. And I understand that not every 'ism' written by an author reflects their beliefs. However, it was so deeply ingrained in this book that it greatly distracted from any themes Otessa Moshfegh wanted her audience to leave with.
Examples:
" Reva, on the other hand, came from Long Island, was an 8 out of 10 but called herself 'a New York three,' and had majored in economics. 'The Asian nerd major,' she named it. "
" Maybe her best friend in high school had been one of the weirdos, like her. Maybe she's had some kind of disability-- a gimp arm, Tourette's, Coke-bottle glasses, alopecia "
" That was fair. He could keep his flabby old vagina lady and her r******* kid "
My Year of Rest and Relaxation takes place in 2000, so I understand many of these problematic ideas permeated in language and culture then. However, this book was written in 2018 . The audience for this book isn't people living in 2000.
Overall, yikes. Big yikes.
The narrator is supposed to be unlikeable. I get that. And I understand that not every 'ism' written by an author reflects their beliefs. However, it was so deeply ingrained in this book that it greatly distracted from any themes Otessa Moshfegh wanted her audience to leave with.
Examples:
" Reva, on the other hand, came from Long Island, was an 8 out of 10 but called herself 'a New York three,' and had majored in economics. 'The Asian nerd major,' she named it. "
" Maybe her best friend in high school had been one of the weirdos, like her. Maybe she's had some kind of disability-- a gimp arm, Tourette's, Coke-bottle glasses, alopecia "
" That was fair. He could keep his flabby old vagina lady and her r******* kid "
My Year of Rest and Relaxation takes place in 2000, so I understand many of these problematic ideas permeated in language and culture then. However, this book was written in 2018 . The audience for this book isn't people living in 2000.
Spoiler
Also, it wasn't super important to the plot to have it take place in 2000. Besides the very end when Reva dies in 9/11, which... felt like such a lazy conclusion of "let's make our narrator realize things on behalf of the suffering of others"!Overall, yikes. Big yikes.