Self-Care, But Make It Unhinged

January 2026 DABS Book Club Pick

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I ended up liking it far more than I expected.

This novel is... odd... like early-2000s malaise distilled into a narrator who actively refuses to be likeable, relatable, or self-aware. Like, at all. At first, I wasn't sure whether that was compelling or just exhausting. Our unnamed (hmmm...) narrator's detachment and apathy can feel abrasive, but over time it became clear that this discomfort was very much the point.

A pause here to say that I listened to this on audio, at my usual 2x speed, listened to a good 60% of it in what felt like a haze of absolute bonkers behavior, before realizing that I was missing something. There was clearly more happening beneath the surface, and I felt compelled to restart the entire book, at a lower speed, and really take it in.

This book is absurd. It's bleak. But it's also unexpectedly funny. There is something compelling about it... about how avoidance, escapism, and self-destruction are dressed up as "healing" and "self-care". And man, is it committed to its vision.

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