So I had some time to think this book through. I gotta say, it really helped me to understand the themes in this book.

The biggest thing I eventually saw was the motif of Superficiality. 

Everyone around our narrator seems to be perfectly content with living in their own superficial and absurd realities:

Ping Xi comes on a painting, calls it art, and people flock to pay millions. 

Reva obsesses over her looks and others, hates her humble background, and basically wishes to be as rich and pretty as our protagonist.

However to our protagonist, beauty does not equal meaning. For example, the protagonists’ mother was characterized as beautiful. Yet she made nothing meaningful of her life and ended up dying with barely anyone recognizing.

Death is inevitable: why pretend to immortalize a momentarily beautiful grape in a painting when you know that it’s somewhere shriveled up and in the trash anyways?

The extreme narcissism and superficiality of beauty our narrator has been constantly surrounded by since birth impedes her ability to see the beauty in nuance or the simple things. 

Her year of rest led to her finding that meaning in the nuances of everyday life - You can put meaning to whatever you please. And in expunging those superficial lens that she was so accustomed to, she was finally allowed to finally see the meaning of life in itself.

Because the beauty of life truly lies in the little things: The ability to meet up and get coffee with a friend you haven’t seen in a while, seeing a cute squirrel on the sidewalk, hearing the sound of the ice cream truck.

Another thing: every time she read the news you would hear the most serious things happening like a war or a death followed effortlessly by the news of something unimportant but viral happening - both reported with the same cadence. Subtle, but I think shows the superficiality of people around her and even herself so much more.

The book was an addicting read and I absolutely love Moshfegh’s writing style. It was witty, gritty, and hilarious at so many points. How she is able to make a book about someone sleeping so enjoyable is beyond me.

However fun it was of a read, I was really wished to see more of her transformation following the year of rest. We’re told by her that the sleep was profound but I’m not shown how. Therefore the ending for me fell flat. 

I liked the story and laughed so hard at certain points, but it didn’t wow me. The disappointment with the ending and the lack of depth in the protagonist’s transformation dulled the impact of the story for me, hence the rating.

Nonetheless it was an enjoyable read.