Book Review / My Year of Rest and Relaxation


Ottessa Moshfegh is really making a name for herself as a master of character study. This is my favorite of her work yet. She creates these characters that seem so unreal on paper but then brings them to live with her words. By the time you're halfway through the book, you start understanding the character's motives in a way you never expected to. 

In My Year of Rest and Relaxation, our narrator experiments with a year-long, drug-induced hibernation. Normally, this would seem like an incredibly dramatic situation, but Moshfegh somehow makes it feel... light and natural?

Let's be real - we've all felt the calling to hibernate for a year when life is too much. I felt a sense of satisfaction in the narrator's ability to plan out and implement her hibernation (regardless of the unhealthy means by which she attains it) because at its core, I think this novel is a reminder that sometimes, we all need to take a break and return to ourselves before we can carry on with life.

Thank you to Netgalley & Penguin Press for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.