14 Books Like My Year of Rest and Relaxation to Read Next
If you loved Otessa Moshfegh’s second novel, you need to pick up these books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation!
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by author Otessa Moshfegh follows an unnamed protagonist.
On the surface of it, she has everything: she’s educated, she’s privileged, she has an incredible job, and she’s beautiful.
But underneath, there’s a darkness and incredible loneliness: unable to jump on the bandwagon of turn-of-the-Millenium optimism, she would rather just escape from it all.
So, the narrator attempts this by spending a year on a strange combination of drugs. Completely alienated from her life and everyone around her, it’s a dark, funny, and occasionally emotional read.
It also features a strong and sometimes unlikeable main character who makes some unfathomable decisions.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a unique read, so finding books that are similar is a bit of a challenge. The following books share similar themes of loneliness, bewilderment, and frustration that can come from adult life.
They’re also honest, observant, and witty, and some of them are similarly unafraid of putting sometimes unlikable characters at the forefront.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to find something on this list to try next!
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
Everything I Know About Love is a funny and poignant memoir that will strike a chord with women in every generation.
Alderton’s stories are relatable for many – from finding her first love to heartbreak to job problems to tales of friendship – but her warmth and wit make this a sublime read that you’ll love sinking into.
Like the narrator in Rest and Relaxation, Alderton does have certain privileges – a glamorous job, money, and plenty of excitement – which does mean some of her stories are fun to read but not necessarily relatable to many.
Having said that, her reflections on humanity and the terrifying reality of being an adult will resonate with everyone who has ever questioned whether they’re ready to be a grown-up.
Everything I Know About Love is available from: Amazon
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo
Girl, Woman, Other was incredibly well-received on release, winning the 2019 Booker Prize. It’s an experimental, bold novel, closely following generations of the same family, exploring issues like family dysfunction, identity, grief, and being a black woman in modern Britain.
Evaristo has a way of poignantly and wittily expressing the (sometimes harsh) realities of modern life using a series of vibrant, complex characters.
Like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Girl, Woman, Other explores some heavy topics with depth but also lightness and wit, and it feels like a very ‘human’ read.
With the characters grappling with the disappointment of their current lives, privilege, and their role in the world, readers of Rest and Relaxation may like Girl, Woman, Other too.
Girl, Woman, Other is available from: Amazon | Bookshop.org UK
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
If you found the narrator’s questioning of her own worth and identity relatable in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, you may also connect with Queenie.
Queenie is a Jamaican British woman in the midst of a crisis; with relationship, work, and family challenges to deal with, she’s finding it tricky to get to the root of what she really wants in life.
Queenie goes on a journey of self-discovery, but it’s not an easy ride. It’s a similarly introspective novel to My Year of Rest and Relaxation, sharing themes of identity, self-confidence, and finding your way in a harsh, confusing world.
Queenie is available from: Amazon | Bookshop.org UK
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
If you love a story with an interesting narrator, you’ll enjoy Klara and the Sun. A gorgeous story about humanity and technology, it follows Klara, an Artificial Friend tasked with looking after Josie, a gravely ill 14-year-old girl.
Klara and Josie’s relationship develops as the grown-ups in charge struggle to deal with the modern world.
Klara’s perspective is fascinating: she observes the world around her with a kind of remote detachment but is capable of feeling fear, hate, trepidation, loyalty, and perhaps even love.
As the reader, it’s fun to puzzle through what Klara is looking at when she describes the scene in front of her. It’s dream-like, surreal, and may be an interesting read for fans of My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
Klara and the Sun is available from: Amazon
Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney
An interesting and intelligent read, Conversations With Friends follows Frances and Bobbi, two friends with a complex history.
Once lovers, Frances and Bobbi are drawn into the lives of married couple Melissa and Nick, a journalist and actor respectively. It’s a contemplative novel about youth, friendship, and the complexity of growing up.
Frances is something of a selfish character; she’s messy and chaotic, and she doesn’t necessarily grow as much as you might expect.
Rooney is not afraid to explore imperfect or even unlikeable characters, and this may resonate with those who enjoyed the darkness contained in the narrator of My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
Conversations with Friends is available from: Amazon
Expectation by Anna Hope
An excellent and sometimes brutal look at modern life and what happens when disillusionment drowns out hopes and dreams, Expectation follows the lives of Hannah, Cate, and Lissa.
Cate is struggling with the weight of motherhood; Hannah is struggling with infertility; and Lissa is struggling with career and relationship problems.
All of the characters have unlikeable elements to them, and their relationships with each other are certainly complicated (to put it mildly!).
It’s a novel about the disappointment you feel when life doesn’t turn out the way you imagined it, and how difficult it can be to reconcile that with the life you do have. It is deeply steeped in the female experience and is unafraid of exploring this with bracing honesty.
Expectation is available from: Amazon
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
In Convenience Store Woman, the main character Keiko Furukura works in Smile Mart, and it’s a match made in heaven: she understands the rules of interaction, she can follow procedures, and she happily spends her days there for eighteen years.
This isn’t good enough for her family and friends, however, and they start to pressure her to find a husband and a proper career.
Keiko is a social outcast, struggling with the complexities of human relationships; she’s an unusual narrator, and a brilliant one. Readers of My Year of Rest and Relaxation may enjoy this unusual journey into Keiko’s life.
Convenience Store Woman is available from: Amazon
Bunny by Mona Awad
Bunny is a fearless story about female relationships, privilege, and loneliness. The main character Samantha is a scholarship student; she’s naturally inclined to dark thoughts and a bit of a loner, but still finds herself invited into a clique of rich girls.
The girls call each other ‘Bunny’ and appear to be pretty twee, but Samantha soon learns that there is a dark, surreal underbelly hidden beneath the clique’s cute exterior.
Awad has a way of capturing the female experience that is searingly honest, even as the story veers into the otherworldly.
Like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, it has a strange, surreal quality to it, and it captures the lonely bewilderment of new-adult life perfectly. It does get pretty dark, though, so be prepared if you plan to read this late at night!
Bunny is available from: Amazon
I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
A stunningly honest memoir that was wildly popular when it was released in 2022. McCurdy is an American actor best known for her role in Nickelodeon’s iCarly and Sam and Cat.
However, the reality of being a child star on one of the biggest kids’ television networks is quite different from how it appears on the surface.
Child stardom brings pressures and complications that most children are unaware of; this is made even worse with McCurdy’s dysfunctional family, and she writes honestly about her mother’s abuse towards her.
It’s a difficult, painfully honest read, and deals with McCurdy’s own thought process as she starts to spiral into depression.
It’s an occasionally uncomfortable but unputdownable memoir, and McCurdy’s feelings of worthlessness along with her complicated relationships with her family members will feel familiar to the narrator’s story in My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
I’m Glad My Mom Died is available from: Amazon
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to his mother. The son, known as Little Dog, has lived through experiences his mother has yet to know about; this letter explains everything.
However, his mother cannot read.
The resulting letter is bracingly honest and at times, incredibly sad. It touches on issues like masculinity, class differences, and racism, and at times, it’s very dark.
Like My Year of Rest and Relaxation, this novel has a lonely, haunting quality to it. The prose is incredible, which makes the sad parts even more devastating, but also adds a layer of beauty to the story.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is available from: Amazon
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman
In this bizarre and funny story, ‘A’ has a fixed kind of lifestyle. She eats popsicles and oranges and watches a ton of television, fixating on a character from a series of advertisements, named Kandy Kat. ‘B’, her roommate, is starting to become creepily obsessed with ‘A’.
This is a strange tale, sometimes a little surreal, and it feels steeped in the late ’90s/early ’00s. It encapsulates the strangeness of adult life, loneliness, and the female experience, and while it’s very different in plot to My Year of Rest and Relaxation, it feels similar in tone, and shares a lot of the same themes.
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine is available from: Amazon
Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
Boy Parts follows Irina, a photographer specializing in explicit photographs of normal-looking men. On a break from her bar job, she scores an exhibition at a London gallery. Far from being a big break, this sends Irina into a spiral of destructive behaviour.
Irina is a complicated character, and at times, she’s pretty unlikable: she hurts herself at every opportunity, escaping into drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. She’s not afraid to use people, and she invests in toxic relationships that aren’t good for her.
However, Irina’s dark mood, loneliness, and bewilderment will be familiar to readers of My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
It goes without saying that there’s a lot of explicit content here; sexuality is a big theme, and it explores this with matter-of-fact honesty with absolutely no sugarcoating.
Boy Parts is available from: Amazon
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
This smash-hit bestselling novel is a funny, emotional read about Eleanor Oliphant, an unusual and complicated main character who finds it difficult to relate to people around her.
When Eleanor makes friends, it turns her life upside down; it also forces her to confront some haunting issues from her past.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is lighter in tone than many other books on this list. However, it still shares similar themes: the main characters from both books find modern life overwhelming, are profoundly lonely, and find other people sometimes difficult to deal with.
Eleanor Oliphant is a hopeful, feel-good tale and may make for a nice read to follow on from My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is available from: Amazon
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Bernadette is a loner; she’s intelligent and prefers her own company but finds herself on the edge of a breakdown.
Dealing with the aftermath of a terrible school fundraiser in the midst of preparations for her daughter’s trip to Antarctica proves to be too much for Bernadette.
She disappears into the ether, leaving her family to search for clues to find her.
Her daughter, Bee, searches through Bernadette’s correspondence, trying to find information. What she finds is the truth about who her mother is, how her mind works, and, crucially, her secrets.
It’s funny and poignant, and it’s a slightly different look at the concept of choosing to disappear from your own life for a while.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette is available from Amazon
Hopefully, this has helped you to find the perfect read to follow on from My Year of Rest and Relaxation!
If you liked this post, check out these:
Books Like Normal People
Books Like Where the Crawdads Sing
Books Like Little Fires Everywhere
Books Like Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
