> "I'm not a junkie or something," I said defensively. "I'm taking some time off." This is my year of rest and relaxation."
I've seen a lot of mixed reviews about this book. The main complaint I've heard is that it's like an episode of HBO's Girls, and it definitely is. The narrator is a wealthy woman in her 20s who works at an art gallery. It's basically Marnie from season 1. (She even talks about meeting an ex-boyfriend in college at a "Halloween party in a loft near Battery Park, which is almost exactly how Marnie met Charlie in Girls.) The thing is though, I liked Girls and I really liked this book.
It's basically about a rich young girl in the late 90s early 2000s, who takes advantage of her financial situation to spend a year sleeping and trying to heal herself.
> Initially, I just wanted some downers to drown out my thoughts and judgements, since the constant barrage made it hard not to hate everyone and everything.
She finds a psychiatrist out of a phone book, who seems like the kind of psychiatrist you would find on Craigslist today: completely crazy and willing to write any and all prescriptions. Still sane enough to warn our narrator not to fill all the prescriptions at once. "We need to stagger them out so as to not raise any red flags" she says.
Pretty soon she's cooped up in her apartment, constantly knocked out on more and more experimental sleep medications, just trying to figure out what she did in her last sleeping pill induced trance. What's not to like?
Sure, it's a book filled with first world problems, but it's a great read! Even though I'm ~20 years older than the narrator, it still felt at times like this woman was my spirit animal.
> I went out and walked past all the little bistros and cafes and shops I'd frequented when I was out there, pretending to live a life.
That's how I feel everyday when I'm driving down 6th street on my way to work.
> Oh, sleep. Nothing else could ever bring me such pleasure, such freedom, the power to feel and move and think and imagine, safe from the miseries of my waking consciousness.
Literally my first thought every time I wake up at 3pm on Saturday mornings afternoons.
> Ghost [the movie] filled me with too much longing, and Whoopi only had a small part in it.
I believe that one can learn everything they need to know about being a man from watching Patrick Swayze in Ghost, Dirty Dancing, and Roadhouse.
And on more serious notes...
> I suppose a part of me wished that when I put my key in the door, it would magically open into a different apartment, a different life, a place so bright with joy and excitement that I'd be temporarily blinded when I first saw it.
Which is how I felt every day coming home from my last job.
Describing her best friend:
> She was a slave to vanity and status, which was not unusual in a place like Manhattan, but I found her desperation especially irritating. I made it hard for me to respect her intelligence.
Anyone else ever felt that way when trying to reconnect with a friend from college?
I could go on and on, with more quotes, but you get the idea. If any of these quotes spoke to you, or if you also enjoyed HBO's Girls, you should check this book out.