• My Year of Rest and Relaxation

  • By: Ottessa Moshfegh
  • Narrated by: Julia Whelan
  • Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (4,563 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation  By  cover art

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

By: Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Amazon,Vice, Bustle, The New York Times, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, The AV Club, & Audible

A New York Times Bestseller

“One of the most compelling protagonists modern fiction has offered in years: a loopy, quietly furious pillhead whose Ambien ramblings and Xanaxed b*tcheries somehow wend their way through sad and funny and strange toward something genuinely profound.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Darkly hilarious . . . [Moshfegh’s] the kind of provocateur who makes you laugh out loud while drawing blood.”—Vogue

From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

©2018 Ottessa Moshfegh (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“I don't think I'm ever going to get over Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation.”—Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

“Ottessa Moshfegh is easily the most interesting contemporary American writer on the subject of being alive when being alive feels terrible. She has a freaky and pure way of accessing existential alienation, as if her mind were tapped directly into the sap of some gnarled, secret tree. . . . Watching Moshfegh turn her withering attention to the gleaming absurdities of pre-9/11 New York City, an environment where everyone except the narrator seems beset with delusional optimism, horrifically carefree, feels like eating bright, slick candy—candy that might also poison you.”—Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

“Darkly comic and ultimately profound new novel. . . . Moshfegh’s extraordinary prose soars as it captures her character’s re-engagement.”—Vendela Vida, New York Times Book Review

Editor's Pick

I woke right up for this dark comedy about sleeping
"Strong, world-conquering heroines are everywhere these days. I admire them, which might be why I’m also a bit bored of them. Thank God for Ottessa Moshfegh, who has a knack for making miserable characters eerily seductive (I see you and I love you, Eileen). At the center of My Year of Rest and Relaxation is another disdain-able type: a beautiful, privileged twentysomething who tries to escape her angst—aided by enough pharmaceuticals to make Hunter S. Thompson bat an eye—by sleeping all. The. Time. It’s a simple, ingenious plot that yields more narrative tension than you might think (I was reminded at times of The Girl on the Train’s blackout-induced mysteries), made all the juicier by Oshfegh’s razor-sharp insights, a send-up of the New York art scene, odes to Whoopi Goldberg, and world-weary narration by the amazing Julia Whelan. A lavish ending caps off this wholly original novel. Don’t sleep on it!"
Kat J., Audible Editor

What listeners say about My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,107
  • 4 Stars
    1,122
  • 3 Stars
    702
  • 2 Stars
    345
  • 1 Stars
    287
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,835
  • 4 Stars
    740
  • 3 Stars
    265
  • 2 Stars
    77
  • 1 Stars
    68
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,671
  • 4 Stars
    962
  • 3 Stars
    631
  • 2 Stars
    354
  • 1 Stars
    363

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I love it...

Very few times I become obsessed with a book, and this one made the trick!
I was engaged at all times, expectant with what was coming and sad that it ended.
The style is quick, anxious, serene, well constructed.
R for Recommended!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

55 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Who doesn’t want to sleep through life sometimes?

Strong, world-conquering heroines are everywhere these days. I admire them, which might be why I’m also a bit bored of them. Thank God for Ottessa Moshfegh, who has a knack for making miserable characters eerily seductive (I see you and I love you, Eileen). At the center of My Year of Rest and Relaxation is another disdain-able type: a beautiful, privileged twentysomething who tries to escape her angst—aided by enough pharmaceuticals to make Hunter S. Thompson bat an eye—by sleeping all. The. Time. It’s a simple, ingenious plot that yields more narrative tension than you might think (I was reminded at times of The Girl on the Train’s blackout-induced mysteries), made all the juicier by Oshfegh’s razor-sharp insights, a send-up of the New York art scene, odes to Whoopi Goldberg, and world-weary narration by the amazing Julia Whelan. A lavish ending caps off this wholly original novel. Don’t sleep on it!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

53 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Don't bother

I was hoping there was a point to this story, but there was not. I read a synopsis and some great reviews, but they must have been paid for. The main character was vapid and just plain awful. She had no redeeming quality and was not mature enough to deal with her problems in a constructive way or learn from them. I kept listening because I thought something great would happen.

Let me save you 7 hours of your life - don't buy this.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

50 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

story of depression and drugs

How many times do we need to hear about her drug cocktail of the hour? How could anyone survive what she injested? Yes, depression is tedious and so is this book. Rich people can afford to be self-indulgent when they are depressed, got it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

41 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

You haven't heard this story before.

I can honestly say I've never read a story like this before. I can also say I didn't really like it, and I thought the protagonist was a pretty terrible human being. I think that's the point, the point the author was trying to make, but that doesn't mean it's easy to listen to her being terrible to everyone around her.

It was a interesting story though and quite unique. I can appreciate it even if it's not something I would recommend to other people! So, if you want a fairly odd book about an unpleasant individual sedating themselves through the year 2000-2002, go for it!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

37 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent, thoughtful read

This is the second book by Ottessa Moshfegh I’ve read. Her books have a unique voice, and unusual characters. I enjoyed this books quite a lot, but I liked it more once I stopped waiting for something (anything!) to happen. This book is about the journey, there is no destination.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

31 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it!!

A really weird tale of a strangely relatable narcissistic young woman with first world pains and deep denial. Fascinating.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Found this title by searching for narrator

I love Julia Whelan! I was looking for more books she narrated when I came across My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

I'm not sure why I stuck with it until the end, but it was pretty terrible. My worst listen in years. It's about a self destructive woman fixated on her own ennui. drugs, drugs more drugs. all downers. she should be dead. she isn't. the end.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Unbearable

I never but never fail to finish a book. Could not give this one a chance past the first several hours of listening. The characters are so artificial and uninteresting and the premise so nihilistic that I could find no reason to punish myself further. I am certain I am missing the point after reading such rave reviews. So be it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Why ever is this selling???

This book is a waste of a great reader. The character is a self involved whiner and her observations and descriptions of others are shallow stereotypes. I just don’t get it.... and you shouldn’t either!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

23 people found this helpful