RERELEASE: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Episode 244
Release Date: September 9, 2026
Your hosts discuss who the villain is in My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. They also talk about dark humor, mental health crises, and mood reading.
Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Episode Transcript*
*this transcript is generated by Descript, please excuse the mess.
Lilly 0:04
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,
Sara 0:10
and I'm Sarah, and today we're re-releasing an episode that we recorded when we first started the podcast.
Lilly 0:16
so we won't be doing our quick five minute intro this time.
Sara 0:20
During the first year of the podcast, we combined two book conversations into each episode along with some related segments like Pet Peeve Corner, and words are weird.
Lilly 0:30
We decided to republish those conversations as separate episodes to give those books a better chance to shine.
Sara 0:37
These have been slightly remastered, but you can still enjoy our Peak 2021 Microphone Technology.
Lilly 0:43
If you want to listen to the original double feature, these are episodes two through 23 in our podcast feed.
Sara 0:50
And as always, come disagree with us. So Lily, you read a book that I did not read, but we're still gonna talk about
Lilly 1:00
I just realized I never looked up how to pronounce the author's name.
Sara 1:04
Oh, no. Well, it's a good thing that we have our disclaimer that we don't know how to pronounce names
Lilly 1:10
One second. If she do- if her Wikipedia article does not have a pronunciation, then I'm just gonna try, try my best.
Sara 1:18
That's all you can do
Lilly 1:20
Yes, I read, I reread actually, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. Oh man, this book, it, it's hard to ca- well, you can capture this book in words because it's a book and it has words, but trying to summarize it was so difficult for me.
Sara 1:41
How so?
Lilly 1:43
I think at the core of it is for some books, the question, what is this book about,
Sara 1:51
Mm-hmm
Lilly 1:52
is different from what happens in this book,
Sara 1:56
That's fair
Lilly 1:57
and I think that is very applicable for this book. At its core, I mean, I could, I could sum up this book, I could sum up what happens in this book in a sentence
Sara 2:07
What would that sentence be?
Lilly 2:09
young woman experiences mental health crisis. That's it.
Sara 2:14
That's a,
Lilly 2:14
That's the whole book. But if you ask what this book is about, at its core, this book is a character study of the main character, who never actually gets a name, which I think is a fun device when used well.
Sara 2:28
Interesting
Lilly 2:29
This book is written in first person, and we all know that I
Sara 2:35
That's not. your fave
Lilly 2:37
But this book utilizes it so well. The main character, as I said, is a young woman going through a mental health crisis, and we are seeing these events through her perspective kind of at the time. It's sort of written in, it's written in past tense. She is recalling these events, but these are events that she experienced high out of her mind on prescription medications.
Sara 3:08
So there's, there's some unreliability
Lilly 3:10
she's extremely unreliable, and that is where, I don't think I actually said this up top, it's a hilarious book. I realize all of the words I have just used to describe it sound extremely dark
Sara 3:23
It does not, from what you have said, it does not sound like there is much hilarity there, I gotta say.
Lilly 3:30
It's that disconnect between h- how the narrator is interpreting events with how the reader interprets them as they are told. For example, the main character often describes herself as effortlessly gorgeous, and then in the same paragraph talks about how once she went down to the corner store, I think she says bodega 'cause she's from New York, but I'm not, so I refuse. She goes down to the corner store, and the employees say, "Oh, you have something on your face," and she just is like, whatever," like, "Go away, don't talk to me." And then she gets home and realizes that her entire chin was covered in toothpaste crust.
Sara 4:14
Oh boy
Lilly 4:15
And that's the same paragraph where she refers to Reva, her only friend, She's just so jealous of me because she could never be as pretty as me." And you have to say it in that voice when you're repeating it because that's, like, that's how it feels.
Sara 4:34
that is clearly the implication there
Lilly 4:36
Yeah. But that's like, that's the humor of the book because she says that, and you're just going, "Are you sure?" And she's really not, I mean, as that quote, that was almost a direct quote. I mean, I was, like, making fun of it, but she says pretty much that exact same thing several times in the book. She is a very bad friend. She's a very unlikable character, but as I said, this is a character study. As you're reading this book, you, you slowly sort of discover why she is the way she is because the main events are her year of rest and relaxation, which is how she refers to the year where she takes enough prescription medication to sleep 20 hours a day, and then she's mad that she has to be awake for four of them. Like, her goal, she says several times, is, "I just want to sleep," and if that's not depression, I don't know what is
Sara 5:33
That sounds like an accurate depiction of depression, although I will say that I would like to sleep 20 hours a day just because I want more sleep, not because I'm particularly depressed
Lilly 5:45
But that's the, like, that's why it's such a... It really hits that balance.
Sara 5:49
Mm-hmm
Lilly 5:50
And you don't exactly catch on to how bleak her situation is right away
Sara 5:57
So things are, I mean
Lilly 5:59
Well, she's doing fine. That's okay. That's another thing. Sorta, well, she's not doing fine, clearly, I should say.
Sara 6:05
she's clearly not doing
Lilly 6:07
she is not doing fine. But part of me feels like this book is sort of poking fun at that young adult novel trope that I cannot stand,
Sara 6:19
Mm-hmm
Lilly 6:20
which is, do you ever read those books that are about high schoolers being rich in New York City with no supervision?
Sara 6:28
Not, not really,
Lilly 6:29
No, that exists,
Sara 6:31
I'm sure it does
Lilly 6:32
I, that, like, that's definitely a, a thing that shows up in young adult novels. And when I, when I read them, all I can think of is, where are your parents? But this novel is sort of the what would that actually look like. The main character is in her late 20s because, of course, no high schooler Like, this makes no sense if you haven't read those books that have that setting, but I promise they exist, and they're very frustrating.
Sara 7:03
I mean, I believe you
Lilly 7:04
Yeah. But the main character here is in her late 20s. The book takes place when she is 28, but you s- like, she, she gives, like, background information as well, so you can sort of see, like, her whole, like, college through 20s life.
Sara 7:22
Mm-hmm
Lilly 7:23
And both of her parents pass away while she is in college, so she's living off of inheritance. She has enough inheritance and then she gets fired from her job, so she has unemployment and inheritance, so she can just live perpetually
Sara 7:39
In New York?
Lilly 7:40
in New York. Well, she, she buys a condo. Like, she owns her place.
Sara 7:43
Oh my.
Lilly 7:44
Like, she's, like, she's rich. She's rich in New York with no supervision. And so she finds a completely unethical psychiatrist to prescribe her far too many medications. Hold on. I, I should find at least one quote. I, so I haven't I thought I was going to spoiler block some of this, but none of this is act- like, there are things that I can spoil in this book, but to this point, even though I am sort of giving information that you don't have from page one, this is still really just the, the concept of the novel, I would like to say
Sara 8:22
So I feel like because it's, as you've described it to me thus far, because it's such a character study, this doesn't necessarily feel like you've given away anything that would affect enjoyment of the plot.
Lilly 8:37
Not at all. This is all still pre- like, it is very well done the way that the information is delivered to you through the main character's experiences, her memories, and then also her trying to piece together what she did during a drug-induced blackout, which happens to her many times. That being said, there definitely, like, things do happen in this book. I'm not gonna get into it because I, like, I don't want to give any spoilers because it's a very good book, but I'm telling you a lot of information, and this is all from the first 25%, I guess is what I... I'm st- I'm still giving you the premise.
Sara 9:15
Yeah, that makes sense
Lilly 9:17
A, a distilled and inelegant version of the premise, which if you actually read the book, will be a much more enjoyable experience.
Sara 9:25
The book does it better?
Lilly 9:27
It does it much better because it has 200 pages to get through this part instead of me just excitedly rambling about it. So I have two quotes that are probably both far too long, but we can decide that after I read them. But I would like to... The, her psychiatrist is the villain in this book. Not in the book, but in my opinion. She loves her psychiatrist
Sara 9:56
Because, because of how the psychiatrist is giving her all of these drugs that she probably shouldn't be taking?
Lilly 10:01
Yeah. She, she tells us, her psychiatrist that she is, has insomnia. And so her psychiatrist just writes her, like, booklets of prescriptions. I am not exaggerating
Sara 10:17
Someone who probably should get their license revoked
Lilly 10:19
Yes. But you read some of the things that she tells her, and it's like this, this young woman is clearly, as I said, going through a mental health crisis. Like, she, she is self-harming with these pharmaceuticals,
Sara 10:33
Mm-hmm
Lilly 10:34
and her psychiatrist just, like, does not care at all. So in my mind, she's the villain because she enables the main character to do this to herself.
Sara 10:43
Right
Lilly 10:44
And I'm gonna read you now from her psychiatrist, from her first meeting. "The biggest threats to brains nowadays are all the microwave ovens," Dr. Tuttle explained on the phone that night. "Microwaves, radio waves. Now there are cell phone towers blasting us with who knows what kind of frequencies, but that's not my science. I deal in treating mental illness. Do you work for the police?" she asked me. "No, I work for an art dealer at a gallery in Chelsea." "Are you FBI?" "No." "CIA?" "No. Why?" "I just have to ask these questions. Are you DEA? FDA? NICB? NHCAA? Are you a private investigator hired by any private or governmental entity? Do you work for a medical insurance company? Are you a drug dealer? Drug addict? Are you a clinician? A med student? Getting pills for an abusive boyfriend or employer? NASA?" "I think I have insomnia. That's my main issue."
Sara 11:47
Okay, two things. Two things. One, my parents had turtles tortoises that were named Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle. So that's completely unrelated to everything except for the fact that the doctor is named Dr. Tuttle. And two, that doctor clearly has issues of their own
Lilly 12:07
Oh, she does. So that was sort of an example of her extremely negligent psychiatrist.
Sara 12:14
I mean, I'm not, I feel like that's not just negligent, but delusional
Lilly 12:20
It's actually an interesting question. Does the psychiatrist know that she's doing something wrong? I'm not actually sure because like you said, she's like, she's, she clearly has her own stuff going on.
Sara 12:31
Clearly
Lilly 12:32
And does she know that she is just enabling rich kids to get drugs so that she can make money? Or does she, like, actually believe she's helping these people? I'm not sure.
Sara 12:45
Well, and there's also the f- the question of if she knew, would she care?
Lilly 12:49
Right. I actually pulled out a lot of quotes from this book, but I think the other one that sort of highlights the way in which the main character is improperly coping with everything that life has thrown at her.
Sara 13:06
Mm-hmm
Lilly 13:06
She is talking about sort of the first time she gets home with all of the drugs that she has been prescribed. The side effects and warnings on the internet were discouraging, and anxieties over them amplified the volume of my thoughts, which was the exact opposite of what I hoped the pills would do. So I filled prescriptions for things like Neuroproxen, Mexifenfen, Valdignore, and Silenciore, and I threw them into the mix now and then. But I mostly took sleeping aids in large doses and supplemented them with Seconols or Nembutals when I was irritable, Valiums or Libriums when I suspected that I was sad, and Placidils or Noctecs or Milltowns when I suspected I was lonely.
Sara 13:51
It's a lot of drugs
Lilly 13:53
I probably pronounced half of them wrong, and I know I stumbled over them. But like every page in this book is just like a new pharmaceutical that she is just tossing back like candy. She will list the things she ate in a day and include, like, pills because that's just what she's eating. She's eating two cups of coffee, an ice cream, like, chiseled out from the bottom of the freezer at the corner store, and, like, a handful of Ambien and also some Nembutals. Like, that's what she ate.
Sara 14:24
A healthy diet
Lilly 14:25
It- Like I said, she's like
Sara 14:28
You're clearly struggling, yeah. I, I know that you said that this was humorous, but it just sounds incredibly, incredibly bleak to me. It sounds so depressing
Lilly 14:38
It's definitely dark humor. It's in many ways a somber book, b- but the humor, it's humorous in its delivery
Sara 14:48
It sounds like a very good book that I would never wanna read.
Lilly 14:51
Oh yeah, you would hate this
Sara 14:53
I would hate this book.
Lilly 14:54
I, I guess I can compare this to, you ever get in one of those moods where you wanna put on angry music and just, like, jam out to it? Like, this is that book, where you're just in one of those moods where you just wanna listen to sad music or angry music. I don't know. It's, it's very atmospheric
Sara 15:17
See, that, that makes, that makes sense because I do get in moods where I want to listen to angry music or sad music, but it still is not, I would, I would never, I would never wanna read this book. I just can't get past that fact.
Lilly 15:31
But it, it's that kind of experience
Sara 15:35
Yeah
Lilly 15:39
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
Sara 15:43
Come disagree with us! We're on Blue Sky and Instagram, at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod at gmail. com. Or leave a comment on YouTube.
Lilly 15:55
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Sara 16:02
We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.
Lilly 16:08
Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.
Sara 16:12
Bye!
