On one hand, I know that this was a well-written book and an interesting exploration of mental health and grief, and that I read it very quickly. On the other hand, I really did not enjoy the way reading this book made me feel: concerned, disturbed, and generally freaked out. The narrator is a woman in her mid/late 20s whose parents died when she was in college. She has no family, a toxic on-again-off-again relationship with a man who seems objectively awful, and a paradoxical best friend who she seems to hate. She spirals deep into self-medicating (facilitated by a horrifyingly unaware psychologist) and is taking an insane cocktail of drugs like Ativan, Ambien, etc.
I feel like the whole time I was reading the book, I was mad at the narrator or worried about her, or both at the same time. For example, she was so consistently mean to her only friend, even though that person consistently showed up and checked on her, it made me crazy! And yes, that meanness seemed to be driven by her own internal sadness and low self-esteem. I also felt so upset that there was no one in the narrator’s life to meaningfully help her. The best friend, despite checking on her, seemed to fail to recognize the depths of the narrator’s situation – or failed to act on it.
So, My Year of Rest & Relaxation was a good book, I guess – both thought-provoking and infuriating.
