Grace’s Reviews #2: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Another sad book relentlessly promoted to me by the internet.
In ways this book reminded me of “A Little Life,” another horrible guide for the mentally ill. But this book gets four stars for me because it made me feel a little less like a freak. I don’t think I was ever outwardly malicious and hateful like our protagonist, but I have felt like a disgusting hollow oxygen thief. I remember desperately avoiding any information about the world because I just couldn’t handle it, I remember the venom I felt when anyone gave me the advice to “just be positive,” I remember being absent from every group photo with my loving friends, I remember watching 25 seasons of South Park within three months, I remember not really caring if I got hit by a bus because it couldn’t possibly make me feel any worse. Being hopeless is not glamorous and it doesn’t make you a better person; if anything it makes you worse and harder to be around even if you try your best to ‘contain’ it. And though I never let myself get as cruel as the narrator I very easily could have let myself. Sometimes it did feel like the best thing for everyone was to simply lock myself away until I disintegrated or spontaneously got better. The book handles this experience with unwashed frankness, and for that I deeply appreciate it. There is also something cathartic about such a deeply unlikable person being the protagonist - I don’t think its constructive for every suffering person in literature to have to be a Saint. Those most worthy and in need of compassion are the often the hardest to give it to.
I also think this book is interesting for what it doesn’t show us. She is black out for much of this book, but when she comes to there are interesting tidbits that show what an unreliable narrator she is both for us and for herself. And that seems especially fitting because mental illness is like having your own unreliable narrator in your head. It’s only in the moments where she isn’t thinking her actions betray her. She does love her best friend, despite constantly deriding her in her internal monologue. After one blackout she wakes up on a train to go see her in a time of need. Multiple times through her actions or offhanded statements how much she wants someone to care for her. It’s almost like the blackouts and post it notes show us what is actually going on with her - she doesn’t need sleep she needs a community. She simply just doesn’t have the tools to know what she needs.
Lastly, I could tell that this book was setting up for 9/11 being the finale event. Which, yes it is, but in the least exciting and meaningful way it could have been used. The ending is why I docked a star because it left me…perplexed. Is the take away that we should lock ourselves in a room for six months doing sleeping pills and drinking ginger ale every three days? Having endured COVID I cannot think of any worse advice for those struggling. I was anticipating the book ending in the failure of her experiment, and/or her having to suffer the consequences of her binge and realize that it wasn’t worth it, or 9/11 having some profound impact on her psyche. But no, she emerges from her drug cocoon having done no work but sleep and some brief reflection on life while tripping balls. Three months later 9/11 kills the only person in the whole book who demonstrated any love for her and its of so little consequence it only gets the very last page. I suppose it ends with her appreciating life and “the little things” but I feel like that could have been more fleshed out.
I will admit my affection for this book is deeply personal. It made me feel seen, but it also made me realize don’t feel that way anymore. It was a way to reflect on the darkness and how I climbed out in a way I was incapable of when I was experiencing it. And for that I appreciate it.
