2018 is the year of intellectual, unlikable female characters who I just so happen to love (the nameless protagonist in this book, Lucy in Melissa Broder's The Pisces, Selin in The Idiot, Bobbi in Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends, etc...). However, what this book has that the others don't is a real feeling darkness; with the exception of interpersonal relationships (she's orphaned, single, and pretty much detests her "best friend"), the narrator pretty much has it all. She's beautiful. She's thin. She's intelligent. She's wealthy. She has a good job... she has all the qualities that are ideal and that society praises (just ask Reva, who doesn't understand why her best friend is acting like this). But while the narrator knows this (and let's the reader know quite frequently), she also knows that she needs to find meaning outside the mundane, superficial ways of society. Thus begins our character's hibernation - a repetitive, year long journey of taking lots of prescription pills, watching lots of horrible VHS tapes, and being the shittiest person on earth - which is the character hopes will allow her to emerge from her drug induced state as a new, rejuvenated person.

There is a plot twist in here that was extremely predictable, but the entire last page of this book is genius and makes following the character's journey worthwhile.

A side note: Hands down favorite cover art of the year. What a perfect fit. ( )

9/10
A true-blue masterpiece. Engrossing, to the point that I felt a kinship with the unnamed protagonist, and nihilistic to the fact that I thought that Nietzsche developed his theory of anti-nihilism precisely because he anticipated such a piece of media being created.
The TL;DR version is that a woman convinces herself that she needs a year off - away from work, all responsibilities, and relationships. To that extent, she quits her job, stops talking to the little people she is already talking to, and stops focusing at all on anything other than the bare minimum to get by. Between her progressively deranged ramblings, her self-described best friend (who she simultaneously loves and hates) pops in to supply her with news from the outside world (and her own).
If that sounds like a dreary ride, I can assure you it's not. The protagonist's biting inner monologue is every bit as uncomfortable as it is darkly funny; her recollections of her childhood are part victimization and part acceptance to the point of hilarity, and every once in a while, the protagonist also offers some solemn ponderings on the state of the world which stops you in your tracks. My only qualm with the novel lies in the last quarter, which is pretty predictable but is still entirely absorbing.
Overall, My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a fantastic collection of musings on the vagaries of consumerism and late-stage capitalism, with some plot sprinkled on as garnishing. ( )

Midway through the book this sentence shows the writer’s technique “I deduced that I’d been crushing Xanax with the handle of a butcher knife and snorting it with a rolled-up flyer for an open mic night at a club on Hester Street called Portnoy’s Porthole”. Ottessa Moshfegh can pull off that long sentence with genius flare. Unfortunately, this depressing plotless novel is perplexing. I slogged through to the bitter end just for curiosity sake. How this got to be number one on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list would make a great mystery novel. ( )

This is a very unusual book, and quite compelling. Anything would be a spoiler. ( )

I get being so completely done with the world and what it has dished out so far that you want to alienate yourself from it. I think it’s interesting that there is no name attached to the narrator, and there are so many references to the 90s early 2000s that make it feel real, especially the reliance on drugs and the twisted way mental health is dealt with. It ends with THAT event in 2001, which feels a little like a copout. It is poignant in history, but I’m somewhat over it being used as a plot device. ( )