A Review of "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Ottessa Moshfegh
Spoilers ahead. I seem to be preoccupied by the ending.
Welcome to the journey of my first reading of “My Year of Rest and Relaxation.” I was still very hesitant to start it while I waited for it to download onto my Nook. I use my Nook as a book battle ground to fight for my interest and a desire to have a physical copy. I went through too many books that barely made it out of their first chapter before I chucked them into a donate pile. So many awful books and wasted space.
If a book is good, I want to be able to hold that goodness in my two hands. I want to take pleasure in page turning if the book is good. And if it is really good, I will end up with multiple editions of it. I feel the terror of a wasted book and the space it takes up. Plus, I do not like to be associated with owning books of mediocre quality. I prefer a healthy variety of books that fully explain who I am as a person. Those books turn into something I can open and see pieces of myself.
It was very shallow to the true extent of the word. My discomfort comes from my belief that letting that dark part of your psyche shadow your treatment of others is pretty shitty. Nothing will get better if you continue to have the mind-set that everything is below me. The narrator misses the cause of her unnamed depression. Once it got to the point of describing her upbringing, I had the “ah-ha” moment. When there is little to no example to be led by, things can go to the wayside. She had zero healthy role models in her life. Which is the root to her sucky relationships with everyone in her life including herself.
She criticizes Reva at every opportunity. There are moments when she even tries to devise a plan to end their friendship, going as far as figuring out ways to harm Reva. The narrator wanted to put Reva in her place, which, according to the narrator, was quite low. With Trevor, she continued to let him use her to boost his ego, all the while hoping he would realize she was the one for him. I wonder if this is how Reva felt. Reva did everything she could to possibly buy some kind of affection or respect from the narrator. Only for the narrator to finally come to this…
“Each time I see the woman leap off the Seventy-eighth floor of the North Tower -one high-heeled shoe slipping off and hovering up over her, the other stuck on her foot as though it were too small, her blouse untucked, hair flailing, limbs stiff as she plummets down, one arm raised, like a dive into a summer lake-I am overcome by awe, not because she looks like Reva, and I think it’s her, almost exactly her, and not because Reva and I had been friends, or because I’ll never see her again, but because she is beautiful.”1
I felt a bit of a “what the hell” when I read that. Especially after the narrator admits she watches it when she is bored.
In an interview with Jezebel, the author was asked about the ending. I felt her reply really solidified my opinion that the narrator still has not come to any kind of realization nor is she able to produce solutions on her own. Due to this lack, she tried to force things to happen instead of allowing them to develop healthily. For instance, her relationship with Trevor felt very forced and was something she could not fully attain. Her attempts to win him back with claims of illness and threats of suicide were just as manipulative as his actions. The healthiest way for that relationship to develop would have been for her to leave him and never look back.
“I saw it as a breakthrough, and I also saw it as her casting Reva onto which she could project all of her grief and loss and emptiness. There’s something about watching Reva, whether it’s Reva or not, jumping from the Twin Towers that somehow manifested all of the complex grief that she had been trying to eschew the whole book, around her parents. It was a place she could land safely and it was on TV and she could watch it over and over again the way that she could with her VHS tapes. She was like, “This is how I’m going to encapsulate and compartmentalize my grief.”2
In the end, I cannot help but feel there was zero resolution. It was a half ass attempt for the narrator. I understand everyone manages grief in diverse ways. However, her version of compartmentalizing felt avoidant of herself. Another quick fix.
She has a habit of never thinking in the form of “I” in terms of “what I did.” It is continuously “what THEY did or did not do.” She focused on what everyone else was lacking immensely and how they should fix it. While for herself, she wanted that quick, one-step fix. Everyone else was a joke to her. I would not be surprised if there was some kind of future relapse into her previous behavior.
Unfortunately, I have noticed a trend of certain people really liking this book and fully relating to it. Which scares the shit out of me. How many narcissists are there? I wonder if they have been formed or were always that way. Yes, I DO BELIEVE that the media and such have created a world where narcissism reigns.
So yeah. I dislike selfish asshats. If you are not going to do good for your fellow man, then piss off. In order to better the world, better yourself. BUT DO IT THE HEALTHY WAY. As much as I am tired of repeating healthy… Mostly because there becomes that grey area of what is healthy. A healthy approach involves developing in a manner that neither harms oneself nor others. This may involve being removed from unfavorable circumstances or discontinuing detrimental habits. It will hurt for a bit but in the end, it will be for the better. Just remember, a quick fix does not mean lasting. You have to work on it. You have to practice.
Not my favorite book nor is it something I want a physical copy of. And in the end, even this review feels a bit all over the place. It was difficult for me because the book does not make sense to me. And maybe this review would have been better as a discussion between two individuals in order to iron out the thoughts. Or maybe I should have just avoided reviewing it. But what is the use of avoiding it?? But still. Never again with this kind of stuff. That is my two cents.
Catch you on the next one.
Shelbi
Moshfegh, Ottessa. My Year of Rest and Relaxation. New York, Penguin Press, 2018.
Juzwiak, Rich (December 18, 2018). "Looking Back With Ottessa Moshfegh at My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Her Year of Pain and Disorientation". Jezebel. Archived from the original on August 23, 2019. Retrieved February 10, 2025.