![]() ![]() I could also see clearly the allure of being pretty, smart, rich, and sleeping an entire year away while re-watching favorite movies over and over and over. ![]() Lashing out now and then only to see if someone cares enough to find out why, or at least to lash back. Struggling to feel worthy of such caring. Growing up with what seems like "it all" yet struggling to feel cared for and cared about. I cared very much that my stepdaughter wanted to share this version of herself - who she feels she is and who she wants to be, even if only temporarily - with me. I was honored, impressed, and conflicted. Yet, I get that our narrator was using that attitude as a tool to create her edges, and she may have risked disappearing altogether without it. One of the things I love most about reading is trying on the beliefs and perspectives of someone vastly different from myself, but I was exhausted by so much meanness. The vulnerable part of her she's protecting is a little too well hidden. Cruel comments and inner dialogue that burst forth clearly as a way to prove to herself that she's fine and in control, that everyone else is not fine, and she just needs to sleep. I suspect she wants to sleep partly to get away from her consistent smart-alec attitude and cruel comments. He's a place, at least, where her pain and suffering make sense. She finds a man that is just awful to her, and she uses him to be awful to her. Her lack of love in childhood has, as it often will, given her a broken picker when it comes to romance and relationships. Her own pain, which is real and valid, stems partly from having grown up in an affection-less home and partly from living in a world that doesn't want to nourish someone as lucky as she. However, because she is smart, pretty, and wealthy, was not much loved as a child but not exactly abused either, it's almost as if even she can't take her own pain seriously. There is a girl beating at the center of the story who has what seems like "it all" but life is sad and she's hurting. I found it fun and fast to read, cutting and direct, darkly funny. (Article continues below image.) Cover picture of the book My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. This makes all the difference.īoth versions of me were engaged and moved by the book. ![]() It is still sleep, but now it is with clarity and purpose and planning. But near the end our narrator finally puts on her big girl panties (perhaps purchased during a drug induced blackout) and makes a true plan with a real goal. Throughout the novel the plan shows itself to be as terrible and dangerous as it sounds, and not really a plan at all. A plan forms to keep sleeping, and the Universe gives her precisely what she asks of it: a therapist that will prescribe her all the drugs necessary to sleep. ![]() She's a pretty girl in pretty apartment with a pretty education and a pretty job. And though they didn't give her much in the way of attention or love, they did give her things money could buy, and they left her enough to live more than a little bit comfortably. Her parents, who she was not close to and who offered no affection and little guidance, have died. Particularly if, as my stepdaughter points out, we could do it while being the narrator. This, many of us must admit, has an appeal. I say "sort of" because there isn't much of a plan besides sleep and sleep and sleep until she wakes up different. The story is of a young woman who sort of decides to fix her life by sleeping for a year. What made this particularly fun was how often one version of me would make a point to the other version of me while my thoughts about the story formed. I read it as a fan of novels highlighting self-realization and exploration, and I also read it as a lady who loves a young girl identifying strongly with a character. So, my experience of reading "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Ottessa Moshfegh was split. Lending me her copy of "My Year of Rest and Relaxation," one she purchased on a whim after declaring her adoration for the book and it's main character, she reiterated, "While you're reading remember, I want to be this girl." Gaslighting: Definition, Examples, Recognizing the Abuse.The Strawman Argument: Information and Examples. ![]()
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