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A review by versmonesprit
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Women in pain. Women existing in sadness. It’s easy to relate to both the unnamed narrator and to her friend Reva. Both personal sadnesses and ones imposed by society plague them. They each deal in their own way: the narrator aims to drug herself into slumber, whereas Reva desires to participate in the very cultures that put her in pain.
Sounds extremely relatable, right? Well, not quite. That would require MYoRaR to go the full length of sociocultural criticism beyond a few commentaries on the art market and fuckboys. I don’t read according to shallow concepts like relatability, and I no longer expect anything of actual value from Moshfegh. So this failure to be anything but commercial fiction wasn’t the reason why I didn’t really like this book.
MYoRaR started off entertaining enough, but things took a turn for me when 1) I realised this is practically Eileen, and 2) this is a premise that can never be fruitful enough to sustain almost 300 pages. I mean, sure, seeing Eileen’s completely undeserved commercial success, I understand why Moshfegh would use it as a template for another moneymaker; but I couldn’t possibly like a book when it’s pretty much a rewriting of one I hated. And also, you know, it got extremely repetitive and boring when it ran out of pretty much everything. I had to drag myself to the finish line. And then still push myself through it, because you know, you see the ending pretty early on in the book and Moshfegh doesn’t bother to do anything very special with it.
One thing I will say, I think this was at least an accurate portrayal of the very ugly sides of mental health issues, and was faceted in its approach to the multiple layers of a person. I just wish it were less lazy, and possessed of more substance. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book even as mass market entertainment, due to how boring it gets around the 200th page mark.
A lukewarm take from a writer whose edginess is still too mainstream to set her books apart. McGlue remains the one-off brilliance for me.
Sounds extremely relatable, right? Well, not quite. That would require MYoRaR to go the full length of sociocultural criticism beyond a few commentaries on the art market and fuckboys. I don’t read according to shallow concepts like relatability, and I no longer expect anything of actual value from Moshfegh. So this failure to be anything but commercial fiction wasn’t the reason why I didn’t really like this book.
MYoRaR started off entertaining enough, but things took a turn for me when 1) I realised this is practically Eileen, and 2) this is a premise that can never be fruitful enough to sustain almost 300 pages. I mean, sure, seeing Eileen’s completely undeserved commercial success, I understand why Moshfegh would use it as a template for another moneymaker; but I couldn’t possibly like a book when it’s pretty much a rewriting of one I hated. And also, you know, it got extremely repetitive and boring when it ran out of pretty much everything. I had to drag myself to the finish line. And then still push myself through it, because you know, you see the ending pretty early on in the book and Moshfegh doesn’t bother to do anything very special with it.
One thing I will say, I think this was at least an accurate portrayal of the very ugly sides of mental health issues, and was faceted in its approach to the multiple layers of a person. I just wish it were less lazy, and possessed of more substance. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book even as mass market entertainment, due to how boring it gets around the 200th page mark.
A lukewarm take from a writer whose edginess is still too mainstream to set her books apart. McGlue remains the one-off brilliance for me.