eading this book, I kept thinking that if someone can write something with no major plot, with such a detailed narrative of inner conflict, without actually experiencing the feeling, then they might have experienced that in one way or another.

Ottessa Moshfegh has described herself at the time as living almost “monastically,” trying to distract herself from her own anxiety through extreme routines and self-denial. She connected that personal experience to the novel’s central idea of trying to escape consciousness.

I went into the novel thinking the narrator’s emptiness was an aesthetic: rich, beautiful, and effortlessly miserable. I had a thing for the repeated vibe/idea by Moshfegh, the hot, mysterious blondie who has the face and body of a supermodel and just wanders around New York City with her tall figure. I thought I had stumbled upon one of those “vibes” novels that would only make me feel good about myself and sometimes equally bad.

Then the author started introducing events to the plot that made the narrator more human: she can be a supermodel-looking, rich, 26-year-old woman, but she’s also substance-dependent. She loved someone who didn’t give a damn about her. Her parents are dead, and she didn’t have a great relationship with them.

She is lonely, and she only has one friend whom she loves, but she also doesn’t like. She didn’t think anything productive or fun would add something to her life. She only watches lots of TV, gets coffee, and finds random shopping carts she doesn’t remember clicking. And suddenly, the glamorous isolation doesn’t feel glamorous anymore.

She treats her own suffering with no possession and no desire to investigate it.

“Real insomniacs suffer hallucinations and lost time and usually have poor memory; it can make life very confusing. Does that sound like you?”

“Sometimes I feel dead, and I hate everybody. Does that count?”

She wanted to escape reality by any means. Even when she’s awake, she doesn’t really like the feeling of being human. She never really connects with anyone, and she just wants to be alone. Even around people, she feels like she’s better off alone than being around those who were supposed to love her but never did.

As much as I hate the narrator, I understand her, her moods, and her isolation.

The book made me want to hibernate for a year, or at least six months, and it ended up being only a few days, as soon as I finished it and the magic of the new book disappeared.

It made sleeping sound good and isolation feel relieving, and I kept fantasizing about these moments of silence. The book points out how consciousness is exhausting and gives solutions to it, or rather, distractions.

And somehow, it all got wrapped up in the end, when an artist turns her year of rest and relaxation into an art project. What initially felt like a joke to disappear suddenly becomes something else: a performance, a piece of art, a statement of what it feels like to exist while desperately wanting not to.

I started the book wanting to hibernate for a year because the narrator made sleep and isolation sound luxurious. I finished the book wondering whether it’s about sleep at all, or about wanting a temporary escape from the exhausting act of being conscious.