Thoughts on "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Ottessa Moshfegh 

I loved this book. I've had this manifestation of depression as well. After my worst breakups, and the loss of my parents, I didn't get out of bed for weeks. I've often wondered if a "sleep cure" would help, but mine would have to be much more safe and controlled than the one in Ottessa's book. "My Year..." takes that concept to an extreme that is atmospheric and dreary. I agree that the main character is wholly unlikeable, and her sadness and boredom are so palpable that you almost *want* her to please take the meds already and pass out for a while. You can almost see why she would go to that extreme to escape the life she felt nothing about. I think that her privilege and wealth and beauty were a stark backdrop upon which Moshfegh crafts a much more compelling tale of depression - a disease that does not discriminate. Characters not being likable is not an issue for me as a reader. Those are sometimes the most interesting characters. They aren't pristine. The author can allow them to suffer without making the reader distracted by pity. I lived in NYC during 2001, and it was lonely and difficult in ways that this character never had to deal with, i.e. being broke and needing to work to survive. I definitely got caught up in a toxic relationship while I was there. I could feel her pain, the pain she couldn't feel or express. (Her situationship with Trevor reminds me of "I Like the Way You Kiss Me" by Artemis, actually...)

As someone whose depression has deeply affected my sleep rhythms and has caused me bouts of insomnia for months at a time, I was drawn to the concept of this book. I thought some of the prose was beautiful, but I had the same critiques of the unlikability of the characters and the repetitive nature of the events and plot. I don’t think it was for me but I’m glad I read it

Im scared of picking up this book... but you convinced me! I will read it once i feel better

TBH I read primarily for pleasure...I'm pretty sure this would be out of my wheel house.

I’ll play devil’s advocate. I think people’s depression can manifest in different ways. I’ve had depression, chemical that has actually been exacerbated by reoccurring incidents over the years), but it is strangely comforting. It’s really easy to stew in it. I don’t really have an addiction to sleep though. I’m sure there’s some deep seated thing where our use of phones and stimulation actually make it harder to sleep because we don’t want to enter a slower state. Idk. Haven’t read the book, but I don’t think I would be able to relate to a lot of the narrators plight. And when you are enduring your own plight, you really want to find people who you relate to. On a somewhat similar note in regards to mental illness, I think there’s a lot of promoting mental illness that fits people’s fancy. Like cherry picking to care about certain people while ignoring others. Veterans dealing with PTSD, or those with Schizophrenia, or lots of incels offing themselves (who get laughed at and are the punchline to jokes while just dealing with extreme loneliness hoping to find something most people want - connection and love). These are not neat little mental health cases. So I still see them getting ignored. And I totally get that you care more about people who reflect your own feelings. But I think it is human nature to be hypocritical. Like we care about problems in the world when they are popular to care about or just a headline online. Yet, you don’t see a bunch of people volunteering, as someone who volunteers.

This narrator was a complete narcissist and a hypocrite when it came to how she’d talk about her best friend Reva. I stopped feeling sorry for her around halfway through the book. She was so observant and smart supposedly when it came to everybody except for Trevor and the way she treated her best friend was awful. Her best friend would do something so small and not really a big deal and she’d be ready to kick her to the curb. But Trevor would do something monumentally disrespectful and she wouldn’t give up 😂😂😂