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ellemaddy 's review for:

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
2.0

i’m not american so i don’t know how wasps are actually in real life, but something about this mc feels kind of satirical in a way because she keeps mentioning her privilege and making fun of others less fortunate. she just feels so evil and literally the antithesis of everything i agree with, subjectively speaking. if i might be so bold, i think she’s deranged and insane.
she’s so privileged to the point that she embraces her depression and she decides to take a year ‘off’ by sleeping and taking tons of drugs to keep herself unconscious. for what reason? other than for the fact that she can afford to do that and no one was telling her how bad of an idea that was. her poor kidney! my god!
she spends her waking hour watching tv and going to the bodega for 2 big cups of coffee like a zombie and then she treats everyone, including herself and her only friend like complete and utter crap. but oh wait, she has a shitty life, though! her parents were so terrible to her that they gave her the sex talk and broke the news that her dad had cancer all in the same conversation. and her horribleness is herself projecting self-hatred towards other people in the most ruthless way possible. she’s surrounded by people who enabled her and treat her like crap so it’s a cycle of extreme toxicity that when i read it was like “these people cannot be real” and i’m truly terrified, babes. do people like this exist????
and you know what’s even worse, when she emerged from this ‘year of rest & relaxation’ we don’t really get to see anything change about her. suddenly she just started going out again and that’s it. sorry? personal development who? it was like, oh a year’s up. i’m living life like usual again. ma’am. ma’am??
the only way i could barely tolerate this book was because this is fictional, and again, feels like it was meant to be this extreme to be ‘funny’ although i found it neither fun or funny, it was just sad reading about these people’s lives.
rated this 2/5 because i did not enjoy mc, i might actually hate her and not the writing / the theme itself.