ottessa being convinced that she can be revoltingly fatphobic and it’ll somehow keep passing as her “”””abject”””” writing style is very clear in this one.

got up to the story “slumming” and felt so gross to keep humouring her ~*problematic narrators*~ that i literally had to stop.

‘Lapvona’ was so much better & finds many other ways to do abject—this book made it glaringly obvious that she has trouble restraining her own obsession with others’ weight & condescending view of fat people when she’s creating new characters. A book of short stories coming back to these attitudes again and again with new and supposedly different characters became kind of like a bad joke to me  

Moshfegh writes with such a distinctive, witty voice that makes each story gripping. Her humor and messiness of her characters were the clear highlights of the book. However, her characters’ “messiness” does not excuse the blatant ableism, racism, homophobia, and overuse of slurs shoved into every story.