First published 2018
In 2000 on Manhattan's Upper East Side, a young woman with a dark hole in her heart embarks on a year of rest and relaxation. Medicated to the gills, she retreats from her alienating relationships and the tragedies of her past. But as her self-imposed isolation deepens, so do the perils of her drug-induced blackouts. In this tender yet blackly funny showcase of Ottessa Moshfegh's powers, one woman's reasonable retreat from the world becomes a merciless and necessary reckoning.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Manhattan, New York (N.Y.), New York (State)
Period: 2000
304 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books
Content warnings: addiction, depression, drug-use, mental-illness