by Ottessa Moshfegh
Never had a book made me so sleepy and ready to bed-rot. Ottessa Moshfegh’s book ‘My year of Rest and Relaxation’ is about an unnamed narrator who employs a terrible psychiatrist to get medication to complete her goal of sleeping for a whole year to complete a metamorphosis. The narrator has every new york girl’s dream life: wealthy, upper east side, high class education, well paying stylish job, and a perfect body, yet the death of her parents leaving her orphaned makes her fall into a depression. It’s exactly what makes so many people hate the book that makes me love it. A white pretty girl who has ‘no reason to be depressed’ becomes depressed and it’s a story that validates all the fortunate people living in stable homes with stable incomes and yet still have mental health issues. Really this book isn’t made for everyone, it’s for those who can actually listen to a story about someone else and all the different thought processes they have, even if it’s not aligned with your own.
