Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Strange but Not Fun

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

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I think Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh must have originally come into my orbit off of a Goodreads recommendation list. The striking image of a dead lamb on the cover caught my eye, and buzzwords like “macabre” and “grotesque” pulled me in. The publisher’s description seemed like it would be up my alley as well – I’m generally a fan of books that explore religion, faith, and climate catastrophe.  The plot follows a year in the fictional medieval village of Lapvona, in particular following Marek, the […]

Miserable people described beautifully

Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

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Full disclosure, I did not finish. That is, Homesick for Another World is a collection of short stories, and I finished several of the stories, and I decided I got the picture of what was on offer here and it wasn’t for me. “An Honest Woman” was the last one I finished, so I made it through about half of them. Ottessa Moshfegh is an absolutely incredible observer and her use of language and specificity is just … each individual sentence is like a little […]

“It was lunacy, this idea, that I could sleep myself into a new life. Preposterous. But there I was, approaching the depths of my journey”

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

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This was such a strange little book! I think I liked it? But maybe I didn’t fully understand it – or at least what it was trying to do? Our unnamed narrator seemingly has it all – she’s pretty, thin, Columbia grad, and wealthy enough that she doesn’t really need her job at a hot art gallery. Which last is probably for the best, because sleep is taking over her life. She can’t seem to shake the idea that if she could only sleep – […]

“… until, like me, it disappeared.”

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

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Ottessa Moshfegh is all about characters over plot. I cannot find the review I read that made me think I’d appreciate this book – but I think I picked it up based on the author and how much I enjoyed My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I’m not mad that I gave this book a try – as it happens, I DO value characters as much as, if not over, plot – but it also was way less successful for me than MYoRaR. This is a dark […]

Bad Company

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

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Unusual. It’s a descriptor that applies equally to Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel and to its title character. Eileen Dunlop narrates the events of a week in her life from a remove of fifty years. At Christmastime 1964, Eileen was 24 years old and living a hopeless existence. Living with her alcoholic father in a crumbling New England home and working at a dreary juvenile detention center, Eileen is socially awkward, malnourished, and getting more detached from reality by the hour. She stalks a co-worker and dreams […]

Her name was Magda.

Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

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I find Ottessa Moshfegh to be incredibly divisive as a writer. Of all her work, I was a little lukewarm on Eileen, but I might reread it soon, and I LOVED her story collection. I actively disliked McGlue, and thought My Year of Rest and Relaxation was amazing. I also really really liked this one. If you didn’t, I get it; she is divisive. So we begin with our narrator Vesta walking her dog in the woods where she lives. She finds a note that cryptically suggests a […]



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