Listen free for 30 days
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
People who bought this also bought...
-
Eileen
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman, trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's carer and her day job as a secretary at the prison. When the charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted and unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship.
-
-
Fantastic reader made this good, wouldve struggled otherwise
- By ziiigggg on 19-03-17
-
The New Me
- By: Halle Butler
- Narrated by: Halle Butler
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I'm still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind. Thirty-year-old Millie just can't pull it together. Misanthropic and morose, she spends her days killing time at a thankless temp job until she can return home to her empty apartment, where she oscillates wildly between self-recrimination and mild delusion....
-
-
Really good if you like this sort of thing
- By Bee on 12-01-21
-
Death in Her Hands
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Anne Marie Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on her daily walk with her dog in the nearby woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Shaky even on her best days, she is also alone and new to this area, having moved here from her long-time home after the death of her husband, and now deeply alarmed. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession as she explores multiple theories about who Magda was and how she met her fate.
-
-
Impelled to write a review
- By Pannika on 12-03-21
-
Fake Accounts
- By: Lauren Oyler
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend’s phone and makes a startling discovery: he’s an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony and outrage, she’s not exactly shocked by the revelation. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies. Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York - or be anywhere in particular - she flees to Berlin....
-
Supper Club
- By: Lara Williams
- Narrated by: Stefanie Martini
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-nine year old Roberta has spent her whole life hungry - until the day she invents Supper Club. Supper Club is a secret society for hungry women. Women who are sick of bad men and bad sex, of hinted expectations to talk less, take less, be less. So they gather after dark and feast until they are sick. They drink and dance and roar. And, month by month, their bodies expand. At the centre of the Supper Club stands Roberta - cynical yet anxious, precocious and lost. She is seeking the answer to a simple question: if you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into?
-
-
Irritating narration
- By Rachel on 05-12-19
-
Luster
- By: Raven Leilani
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, she is sleeping with all the wrong men and she has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her: painting. No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair.
-
-
Rampant and pithy
- By papapownall on 31-01-21
-
Eileen
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman, trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's carer and her day job as a secretary at the prison. When the charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted and unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship.
-
-
Fantastic reader made this good, wouldve struggled otherwise
- By ziiigggg on 19-03-17
-
The New Me
- By: Halle Butler
- Narrated by: Halle Butler
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I'm still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind. Thirty-year-old Millie just can't pull it together. Misanthropic and morose, she spends her days killing time at a thankless temp job until she can return home to her empty apartment, where she oscillates wildly between self-recrimination and mild delusion....
-
-
Really good if you like this sort of thing
- By Bee on 12-01-21
-
Death in Her Hands
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Anne Marie Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While on her daily walk with her dog in the nearby woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Shaky even on her best days, she is also alone and new to this area, having moved here from her long-time home after the death of her husband, and now deeply alarmed. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession as she explores multiple theories about who Magda was and how she met her fate.
-
-
Impelled to write a review
- By Pannika on 12-03-21
-
Fake Accounts
- By: Lauren Oyler
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend’s phone and makes a startling discovery: he’s an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony and outrage, she’s not exactly shocked by the revelation. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies. Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York - or be anywhere in particular - she flees to Berlin....
-
Supper Club
- By: Lara Williams
- Narrated by: Stefanie Martini
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-nine year old Roberta has spent her whole life hungry - until the day she invents Supper Club. Supper Club is a secret society for hungry women. Women who are sick of bad men and bad sex, of hinted expectations to talk less, take less, be less. So they gather after dark and feast until they are sick. They drink and dance and roar. And, month by month, their bodies expand. At the centre of the Supper Club stands Roberta - cynical yet anxious, precocious and lost. She is seeking the answer to a simple question: if you feed a starving woman, what will she grow into?
-
-
Irritating narration
- By Rachel on 05-12-19
-
Luster
- By: Raven Leilani
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, she is sleeping with all the wrong men and she has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her: painting. No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair.
-
-
Rampant and pithy
- By papapownall on 31-01-21
-
Boy Parts
- By: Eliza Clark
- Narrated by: Eliza Clark
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best friend and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention....
-
-
Fantastic
- By Jay on 27-03-21
-
Expectation
- By: Anna Hope
- Narrated by: Vinette Robinson
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable. Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry - and the promise of everything to come. They are electric. They are the best of friends. Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be. Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have. And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life?
-
-
Women are just a product of their fertility
- By Amazon Customer on 21-06-20
-
Detransition, Baby
- By: Torrey Peters
- Narrated by: Renata Friedman
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When her ex calls to ask if she wants to be a mother, Reese finds herself intrigued. After being attacked in the street, Amy de-transitioned to become Ames, changed jobs and, thinking he was infertile, started an affair with his boss, Katrina. Now Katrina's pregnant. Could the three of them form an unconventional family - and raise the baby together?
-
-
A very honest depictions of modern adult life.
- By R . K on 11-02-21
-
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
- By: Jia Tolentino
- Narrated by: Jia Tolentino
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are living in the era of the self, in an era of malleable truth and widespread personal and political delusion. In these nine interlinked essays, Jia Tolentino, the New Yorker’s brightest young talent, explores her own coming of age in this warped and confusing landscape.
-
-
A modern masterpiece
- By peixeespada on 07-10-19
-
Such a Fun Age
- By: Kiley Reid
- Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Emira is apprehended at a supermarket for ‘kidnapping’ the white child she’s actually babysitting, it sets off an explosive chain of events. Her employer Alix, a feminist blogger with the best of intentions, resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix’s desire to help. When a surprising connection emerges between the two women, it sends them on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know – about themselves, each other and the messy dynamics of privilege.
-
-
doesn't live up to the hype
- By Tsundoko and Tea on 10-01-20
-
No One Is Talking About This
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Kristen Sieh
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A woman known for her viral social media posts travels the world speaking to her adoring fans, her entire existence overwhelmed by the internet - or what she terms ‘the portal’. Are we in hell? the people of the portal ask themselves. Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die? Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong", and "How soon can you get here?"
-
-
Writing. Reading. Everything
- By Abigail Taubin on 05-04-21
-
Adults
- By: Emma Jane Unsworth
- Narrated by: Chloe Massey
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jenny is unloved, unemployable and emotionally unfiltered. Her long-suffering friends seem sick of her, and whilst her social media portrays her life as a bed of roses, it is more of a dying succulent. Adults is what you want it to be. A misadventure of maturity, a satire on our age of self-promotion, a tender look at the impossibility of womanhood, a love story, a riot. And Emma Jane Unsworth is the only voice to hear it from. Adults is excruciating, a gut punch of hilarity and an audiobook laden with truth that you will listen to again and again.
-
-
50/50
- By Amazon Customer on 16-02-20
-
Exciting Times
- By: Naoise Dolan
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ava, newly arrived in Hong Kong from Dublin, spends her days teaching English to rich children. Julian is a banker. A banker who likes to spend money on Ava, to have sex and discuss fluctuating currencies with her. But when she asks whether he loves her, he cannot say more than 'I like you a great deal'. Enter Edith, a lawyer. Refreshingly enthusiastic and unapologetically earnest, Edith takes Ava to the theatre when Julian leaves Hong Kong for work. Quickly, she becomes something Ava looks forward to. And then Julian writes to tell Ava he is coming back to Hong Kong....
-
-
Exhausted by Ava’s tedious self-absorption
- By AD on 20-10-20
-
Sorrow and Bliss
- By: Meg Mason
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone tells Martha Friel she is clever and beautiful, a brilliant writer who has been loved every day of her adult life by one man, her husband, Patrick. A gift - her mother once said - not everybody gets. So why is everything broken? Why is Martha - on the edge of 40 - friendless, practically jobless and so often sad? And why did Patrick decide to leave? Maybe she is just too sensitive, someone who finds it harder to be alive than most people. Or maybe - as she has long believed - there is something wrong with her.
-
-
couldn't stop listening
- By Anonymous User on 13-02-21
-
The Interestings
- By: Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Jen Tullock
- Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age 15 is not always enough to propel someone through life at age 30; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence.
-
-
Tying with The Goldfinch as my favourite audible listen
- By ros on 07-01-20
-
The Hungover Games
- By: Sophie Heawood
- Narrated by: Sophie Heawood
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Hungover Games is the true story of one woman’s adventures in single-motherhood. It’s about what happens when Mr Right isn’t around, so you have a baby with Mr Wrong, a musician who tells you halfway through your pregnancy that he’s met someone else - just after you’ve given up your LA life and moved back to England to be with him, so you’re now six months up the duff and sleeping on a friend’s sofa in an art studio in Dalston.
-
-
Rather like Brexit really
- By Bored Customer on 25-02-21
-
Priestdaddy
- A Memoir
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.
-
-
The eccentric and quirky life of a Catholic family
- By Suswati on 04-09-17
Summary
Random House presents the audiobook edition of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, read by Julia Whelan.
From the Man Booker-shortlisted author of Eileen.
The New York Times best seller.
It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
Our narrator has many of the advantages of life: young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, she lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like everything else, by her inheritance. But there is a vacuum at the heart of things, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents in college, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her alleged best friend.
Blackly funny, both merciless and compassionate - dangling its legs over the ledge of 9/11 - My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a showcase for the gifts of one of America’s major young writers.
Critic reviews
"Savage, funny, frequently on the verge of teetering into lunacy...My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a non-negotiable in your holiday carry-on this summer." (Vogue)
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 06-01-20
Miserable.
Great idea, wholeheartedly spoiled by entirely unlikable characters, none of whom have any real problems whatsoever. This book is full of that shallow self-indulgent neurosis where people who don’t really have problems try to convince you they do.
This book has nothing to say.
The only thing that will stick with you from this is just how unhappy it makes you feel - and for no good reason.
I would encourage the author to take a year of rest and relaxation herself. Hopefully, instead of writing further.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- clare
- 20-05-19
Not convinced
Found myself really struggling to manage to finish it and it took a lot of effort to continue you with it. I felt my thoughts wondering on a number occasions. Wasn’t for me.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- thetruthshallsetyefree
- 16-01-21
A book for our times
An incredible novel - very moving, very real and very very funny.
Beautifully narrated by Julia Whelan.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Carmen Lean
- 08-11-20
Theraputic, dark, funny
This became my drift off to sleep audiobook. Something about the protagonist's no f*cks to give attitude is very soothing - it's like an ode to sleep. I love the way it's written and also kudos to the narrator who brings hilarious characters to life - Dr Tuttle is just a brilliant conception, I couldn't stop laughing.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Natasha Skinner
- 19-07-20
So so
Interesting concept. Drags slightly.
Narrator is very easy to listen to. Abrupt ending. Worth a read.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Silver
- 04-06-20
If you enjoy listening to rich white women moan about their lives it’s for you
I really feel like I wasted my time and money. It’s not written in a clever way, there is nothing you could possibly extract from this, it was not even remotely entertaining. I’m not sure what this book was trying to accomplish. Perhaps once upon a time my angsty teenage self would’ve enjoyed the glorification of psychoactive drugs but I wouldn’t let any teen I know read this. Reminds me of the failed show Gallery Girls which was quite similar in its lack of substance and boring nature. This book has left me feeling gross and a bit disappointed. Definitely not a book for BIPOC.
For the record I am in no way saying the writer is inherently boring, I am stating that this book -to me- feels like a vapid account of some random rich white woman’s life and that -to me- is not appealing.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-04-20
loved it.
what a great fit for these strange times! witty, inteligent, sarcastic and bold. great audio performance.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Manda N
- 26-02-20
A raw delight from start to finish
My favourite read so far this year; Moshfegh fast becoming a favourite author of mine. This as good as her Booker long listed Eileen.
Moshfegh’s writing is gritty, raw and as honest as it gets. Her female protagonists are flawed yet immensely likeable. A novel about dealing with loss and grief. I could see the end coming however when it did arrive, it shook with an intensity I haven’t felt in a novel for a very long time.
Excellent, just phenomenal.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sophie
- 27-05-19
Interesting but drags on for too long
The novel seem to drag on forever, which is a shame. The premise and main character of the book are well crafted but the overall message of the story is diluted by the endless repetition of the same events. The feelings evoked by the main character’s self-destruction and self-hate would left a much stronger impression on me if the writing had been more concise and the novel considerably shorter.
The narration was great.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Caroline
- 23-04-19
Different, not for me
This book is a departure from my normal books. It was interesting enough but I think maybe a bit close to the bone for my tastes. I found it difficult to sympathise with the main character at all, or the other characters in the book. Not an easy read as the subject matters can be quite heavy however very well written. Just not for me.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Karen McCarthy / Brenda Dass
- 11-04-19
Bizarre but intoxicating and compelling
The performance is brilliant, and it matches the benignly self centered main character. I have never found this unsympathetic a character this compelling before.
1 person found this helpful