The Fault Is Not Mine

Bleak, biting, and deliberately monotonous — a novel about opting out of life that sometimes just ends up shutting the reader out too.

✍️ My Thoughts:
I picked this up because I’d heard so much about it — the cult “sad girl lit” favourite, the book where a woman decides to sleep for an entire year. The premise is bold, and on paper it’s exactly the sort of offbeat character study I usually enjoy.

But here’s the thing: the narrator is thoroughly unlikeable (deliberately so), the tone is relentlessly cynical, and the pacing mirrors her sedation — slow, repetitive, and often disorientating. I can admire Moshfegh’s commitment to the idea, but I found myself switching off long before the narrator did.

There are glimmers of brilliance. Moshfegh skewers the emptiness of early 2000s Manhattan wealth culture with a razor-sharp eye, and the black humour occasionally landed for me. But the flashes of wit weren’t enough to make up for a reading experience that felt more exhausting than engrossing.

Would I recommend it? Only if you’re very much in the mood for something dark, bitter, and still. I understand why it resonates so strongly with some readers — the themes of grief, alienation, and the desperate urge to retreat from the world are powerful. But for me, the execution tipped too far into monotony.

📖 Vibe Check:
💊 Sedation chic
🖤 Cynical humour
📉 Nothing happens (by design)

💬 Favourite Quote:
“I was always angry that people couldn’t see into my head, that they were content to glimpse me only from the outside.”

⭐️ Final Rating:
2 stars. Conceptually sharp, but the reading experience left me cold — more numbing than illuminating.

Not every book lands the same way for everyone — this one simply wasn’t for me. But if you read it and loved it, I’d genuinely like to hear why it worked for you. Sometimes those different perspectives are just as fascinating as the books themselves.