Reviews tagging 'Addiction'

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

108 reviews

minaestchan's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Addiction

Moderate: Biphobia

Minor: War, Adult/minor relationship, Fatphobia, Racism, and Pedophilia

historicalmaterialgirl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

With all the bisexual chaos of You Made Death a Fool With Your Beauty, and all the hilariously weird energy of Big Swiss, You Exist Too Much delivers a story of a young writer trying to resolve her addiction to sex. The novel's plot dissolves into fractured memories, non-linear and sometimes confusing. The protagonist is unlikeable, and there's a lot of unsatisfying, dead-ended subplots. Though usually all of these elements don't work for me, the writing itself was so good, it did this time. This is how memory is affect after trauma. This is how sexuality, desire and love are after trauma. There are no giant healing conversations between the mother and daughter, no essays written to undo the pain, just attempts and failures to be better. 

All that being said..... idk how y'all liked Big Swiss and not this. This was so much better.....

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Addiction, and Mental illness

Moderate: Colonisation

codecat's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship and Addiction

Moderate: Biphobia

Minor: War

catbuechler's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder and Addiction

oliviapincin's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Emotional abuse, and Sexual content

Moderate: Addiction, Biphobia, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Lesbophobia, and Gaslighting

Minor: War, Outing, Islamophobia, Mental illness, and Xenophobia

alleahwebb's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Bullying, Colonisation, Emotional abuse, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, Biphobia, Infidelity, Addiction, and Lesbophobia

okayletsread's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Essentially, this was a book about self-sabotage in the form of love addiction through the lens of a queer Palestinian American woman. I liked the flashbacks to the main character's childhood and its connection with her current behaviors, but it focused too much on a long string of love interests and unhealthy, toxic relationships that contributed to her addiction. And the style felt rushed and reminiscent of stream-of-consciousness journal entries from our teenage years. There's not enough in the book that worked for me.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Islamophobia, Addiction, Eating disorder, and Toxic friendship

archiveofrasa's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

despite this book not necessarily being a 5-star read for me, I'm really glad I read it. I have this urge to give it a higher rating with every other review I'm seeing at the moment, but I'm sticking to 4 stars.

no matter how unlikable this (unnamed) main character is, she feels so real on the page. she's contradictory, absolutely messy in the sense that if she was gen Z I know her peers would shun her online, and she's in so much unacknowledged pain. she unravels this pain slowly, empathetically that when she starts admitting it bit by bit, I felt this satisfaction growing, even though she continues to be flawed.

maybe it's just me, but whenever she cheated, it wasn't like she was actively justifying it. I feel like a lot of people are implying this, but it's more matter of fact, described like an addiction, which is essentially what it is for this character.

going into this book, I expected to see more vignettes with her mother, but on my annotating reread, I realised her mother was indeed there, just in between the lines. that's ultimately what this book is about: the main character's relationship with her mother and how that's impacted her throughout the questionable choices she makes. the connections this has to her Palestinian roots, diaspora experiences, her sexuality and generally just lack of community, they were so interesting and heartbreaking. reading Arafat's interviews about this book definitely confirmed my thoughts on quite a few aspects of the novel and while there is a lot of subtlety I feel like went over my head, I really enjoyed it!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Homophobia, Biphobia, and Addiction

D-slur is used once.

fkshg8465's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I had high expectations of this book. I wish I hadn’t, because then maybe I would’ve liked this book moss than I did. Terrible characters!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Sexism, Drug use, Homophobia, Addiction, Biphobia, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual content

windermerepeak1's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The intersectionality between race, sexuality, and religion is done so well here and that makes it good enough of a read to recommend

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Islamophobia, and Racism