The title may seem a bit strange for a novel. The story behind it is about a sleeping beauty who thinks that sleeping for a year will solve all her problems.
“My Year of Rest and Relaxation” is a fictional novel by Ottessa Moshfegh written in 2018. It was named best book of the year by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and The Washington Post.
After finishing the novel, I was not sure how to feel about it. However, it stayed with me, and I can’t stop thinking about the main character and the strange but original storyline.
Don’t we all, at a certain point in our life, want to just sleep? Not deal with our problems and just sleep it off. But the idea of sleeping for a year is unrealistic because of the bills we have to pay and the jobs we need to keep. In this novel, the main character has the privilege of being able to sleep for a year without having to worry about paying her rent or surviving in general.
This unnamed character has enough money to afford doing that. She is also well educated as a recent Columbia University graduate. She works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side. Despite all her beauty and wealth, there is something missing in her life. She wants to find out what it is by sleeping, or let’s say hibernating for a year, with a goal to be reborn with a new identity and a will to live.
It seems sad. I mean, at a certain point in my life, I wanted to avoid my problems by sleeping and I used to sleep for two days. I was in complete denial that I was suffering from depression, just like our unnamed character. Our “sleeping beauty” is in denial of being depressed. But as a reader, you can see it through her life choices, manners and her relationship with her best friend.
Can we get things sorted out when we try to ignore it by sleeping or are we just kidding ourselves? That’s what I found myself asking throughout the novel. It magnifies the cruel, dark bits of life and depression. It makes you reflect on your life and personal traumas.
The novel made me gravitate more towards unhinged women in literature, which is the main theme of the novel. People want to read more about imperfect characters because in some way, we can relate to them. A lot of readers, including myself, are bored reading about perfect characters with no flaws who always seem to make the right decision and have a happy ending. I understand we read to be entertained and love to escape reality reading about happy characters. But at a certain point in our life, we want to read about characters similar to us that deal with depression, have some existential crisis or characters who are not sure what to do with their lives. Some audiences are sick of reading about characters who set up unrealistic standards.
Unhinged women in literature also means unlikable characters, just like our sleeping beauty in “My Year of Rest and Relaxation.” She is a horrible person, and you won’t find yourself rooting for her or sympathizing with her. But it feels real and original.
Unhinged women in literature are a powerful tool for the author to criticize certain issues in society. In “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” the author uses the main character as a tool to criticize the culture of overconsumption when it comes to pills and antidepressants.
Keep in mind, this novel is not for everyone. It’s for a specific audience. If you like to read fast paced books with a clear plot, this novel is not for you. But if you want to read something with a captivating writing style and a very complex character, then you will enjoy this novel. Plot driven and fast paced novels are what made me fall in love with books. Reading this novel got me out of my comfort zone, and now, I am open to reading novels that make me reflect on my life.
