5 Of The Best Ottessa Moshfegh Books In Order

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“I did crave attention, but I refused to humiliate myself by asking for it.”

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If you’re curious about Ottessa Moshfegh’s books in order, or wondering where to start with her darkly compelling fiction, we’re here for you. Renowned for her razor-sharp prose and profoundly unsettling characters, Moshfegh has become one of the most discussed voices in modern fiction. From her breakthrough debut novel, Eileen, to the cult favourite that is My Year of Rest and Relaxation, each of her stories offers a distinct dive into the minds of flawed, often disturbed protagonists. Whether you’re a newcomer to her work or looking to revisit her bibliography, join us today at What We Reading as we rank the best Ottessa Moshfegh books. We’ll explore which of her books to read first, how they connect thematically, and what makes each one of them truly unforgettable.

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Eileen (2015)

First up on our list of the best Ottessa Moshfegh books is her Hemingway-award Award-winning debut, Eileen. The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman caught between her life caring for her alcoholic father and her day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and fuels her nights with shoplifting and stalking a buff prison guard named Randy. 

When the bright and bubbly Rebecca Saint John arrives as the new prison counsellor at Moorehead, Eileen is entranced. However, her affection for Rebecca soon pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings. Creepy, mesmerising with its snowy New England setting, and sublimely funny, Eileen introduces Moshfegh’s distinctive voice through one of the most unforgettable protagonists in recent fiction. 

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Check Out The Best Books Like Eileen

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My Year Of Rest And Relaxation (2018)

Arguably the most famous Ottessa Moshfegh novel to date, My Year of Rest and Relaxation follows a narrator who appears to have all anyone could ask for. She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, and has an easy job at a fashionable art gallery, living in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Yet, there is a dark, vacuous hole in her heart. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibilities; so what could be so terribly wrong? 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation aims to answer that very question. Through a story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs, the book follows our narrator as she attempts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of a battery of medicines prescribed by one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and exceptionally compassionate, the book shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. 

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Check Out The Best Books Like My Year Of Rest And Relaxation 

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Lapvona (2022)

Little Marek never knew his mother; his father told him she had died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him as a baby. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare, however: she possesses an ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, no matter how religious they claim to be. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and stay well clear of. 

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villain, whose hilltop manor contains an embarrassing amount of riches. The people’s need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villaim and the priest, particularly when droughts and famine reach the village. When fate brings Marek into the orbit of the lord, new and occult forces upend the old order. By the end of the year, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural and spirit realms, civility and savagery, will prove to be very fine indeed. 

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Death In Her Hands (2020)

While on her normal daily walks in the forest woods, our narrator for Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands stumbles upon a handwritten note. “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.” Our narrator is shaken by the discovery. New to the area, she broods about this note soon grows into a full-blown obsession. She begins to devote herself to exploring the possibilities of her conjectures about who this woman could have been and how she met her untimely fate. 

Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery begins to form into a concrete and menacing shape. But, as we readers follow her investigation, strange dissonances begin to occur, and our faith in her grip on reality weakens. With so much tension and a classic unreliable narrator that has become a staple for her work, Death in Her Hands is undoubtedly one of the most underrated Ottessa Moshfegh books to read. 

Homesick For Another World (2017)

Whilst Ottessa Moshfegh’s novels have rightfully been lauded as being some of the freshest and boldest in recent times, the American’s writing career began with her short stories. Homesick for Another World is a collection of some of Ottessa Moshfegh’s best short stories, blending the trademark mix of unsettling, dangerous, delightful, and even occasionally hilarious that have helped make her such an iconic writer. 

Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in some way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways is often tripped up by their own impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a masterclass in the varieties of self-depracation that features an eclectic cast of characters who all embody the human condition.