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

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The ending did not go where I thought it would. This read reminded me of A Clockwork Orange, as both main characters are so flawed yet fascinating to read.

Personally, I found the ending somewhat difficult to accept. I know it is rough timing to make a book about isolation two years before societal mass isolation, but the book’s philosophy that someone could be a riddled drug addict desperate to shut off her own thoughts and then just… stop… felt a bit too simplistic for a novel that was so incredibly rich and complex. I find the foil of Reva and our main character extremely interesting, especially with the parallels of our main character envisioning jumping out of a window during her drug-induced haze. The fact that Reva, not the main character, is the one who died, is a quite interesting concept to chew on. On the whole, I enjoy the ending, but I feel as if some of it is a bit unresolved/unexplored.