“Oh, sleep. Nothing else could ever bring me such pleasure, such freedom, the power to feel and move and think and imagine, safe from the miseries of my waking consciousness.”

My Year Of Rest and Relaxation, originally published in 2019 by author Ottessa Moshfegh, was one of the many books that blew up on Booktok during quarantine. The novel follows a 24-year-old unnamed narrator living on the Upper East Side in the early 2000s. Feeling tired of life, she decides to hibernate for an entire year using a wide variety of drugs to put her to sleep. Darkly humorous and packed with relatability, her attempt to hide from life instead served as a wake-up call to start living.

Beautiful, smart, young, and with more Krmoney than she needs, Moshfegh’s protagonist has practically everything one could ever want. But to her, life is absolutely pointless. There’s something missing inside of her, as she possesses close to zero emotions for others and never hesitates to say what’s on her mind, no matter how odd or rude. 

After a depressive spiral leads her to quit her job at an art gallery, our protagonist seeks refuge in a regimen of dozens of prescription drugs to get as much sleep as possible. Throughout the year that follows she reflects on her past, including her troubled relationship with her mother and her unsuccessful attempts at finding love. She wonders about the world surrounding her and how she’s supposed to fit into it all. The only person she speaks to besides her doctor, Doctor Tuttle, is her eclectic best friend Reva, who is going through her own life crises. 

By the time her year is coming to an end, she realizes that her plan hasn’t been as effective as she had hoped, as she begins to experience hallucinations and nightmares as side effects of the medications she is taking. Instead of helping her rest and relax, the drugs are only heightening her feelings of loneliness and paranoia. At the end of the novel, she comes out of hibernation vowing to go out and experience life again. She has transformed for the better as a consequence of her own mental recovery rather than all the drugs. 

While reading, it’s hard not to fall for Moshfegh’s comedic writing style and laugh out loud occasionally. No matter how dark and troubled our narrator may be, she was written to be extremely entertaining, making the readers feel guilty for enjoying her twisted personality. If you’re a reader who gets easily irritated at characters’ poor choices then this may become a difficult read. However, anybody who’s experienced heavy bouts of depression or feelings of isolation will find immediate connections to our narrator, and may even root for her by the end.

Initially I was confused about what to take away from this book, since the ending was left extremely vague and open-ended. The story poses many questions that the reader will most likely never have an answer to – is sleeping away your life a brave decision or a cowardly one? Is it fair to be unhappy in a sea of wealth and privilege? Ultimately, this novel proved that the only way through your problems is to face them head on, and to be conscious in the process. Just as our narrator came to realize, the only thing that can help you feel better about yourself is you.