A review by calicoes
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

dark hopeful reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i won't lie, i enjoyed the hell out of reading it and found it extremely hard to put down for later (for the most part.) HOWEVER. 

for me, my year of rest and relaxation was a rollercoaster that, more often than not, kept slinking downwards, and then her transformation at the end felt almost magic. it was nearly comical! i wanted it for her, and yet almost couldn't believe it? her ironic criticism of people's shallowness when she didn't seek any deeper meaning herself and held onto nothing but a dream... ultimately worked out for her—in other words, it reads to me as the "good ending" to all her decisions that would otherwise to lead to her (worse) demise.

the whole ordeal with ping xi came up a bit suddenly to me, didn't make as much sense as it was supposed to and happened very quickly—but i took it all as a satire and remark of the topics handled throughout the novel; image, ego, class & desperate relationships; all reflected in the bitter, privileged protagonist, her psyche, loveless past and her motives (or lack thereof?); her relative privilege seeming to just fuel her apathy & delusion only because it's all she can occupy herself with (childhood neglect aside.) i did note a bunch of ideas getting repetitive, but at other times i found much profoundness in those fleeting thoughts. 
plus 9/11 mentioned. saw it a mile away (reva's promotion lol)
 

maybe i'll be up to annotate the book by the time i re-read, and get my thoughts in better order... unfortunately i ate this one up
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