Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

36 reviews

nad_books623's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense 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

3.75

I overall I enjoyed the story but I did not like how it was organized and something felt like it was missing from the story.

I do like how the mother daughter relationship was portrayed and the main characters inner turmoil

I kept getting confused because, she didn't tell everything in order. Especially, with the people she had relationships with or that she was obsessing over was not in order in how they were brought up, which confused me.

Also, I did not like how before, during, and after treatment had different types of pacing. During her treatment it seemed to flow, but after it seemed a little choppy because, of how the flow was before. At least in my brain it would make sense if the after was a part 2 or if the Midwest portion was written in a different flow. On the flip side the erratic writing style (at least in my brain) could also make sense to how overall the main character was all over her place.

This is the first time I thought this, but I think the title of this novel perfectly capitulates the entire story and the main character as a person.

Throughout the entire novel the main character struggles mainly with the relationship with her mother. She never felt like she was enough and tried to seek what was empty inside her with other people. It was an endless cycle that was hard for her to disrupt and had to consciously stop herself. Something I did notice is that Karim was not mentioned much and there was no explanation about why. For example, her father wasn't mentioned much, but it made sense with how their relationship was described. I did like how there was like a chapter within a chapter towards the end of each chapter. 

As someone who is bisexual I did like how the character's bisexuality was written and how biphobia was mentioned without it being too subtle. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Racism, Abandonment, Addiction, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Mental illness, and Sexual content

Moderate: Xenophobia and Physical abuse

Minor: War, Religious bigotry, Classism, Death, and Misogyny

itsbumley's review against another edition

reflective 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

3.25

"How many stories have been penned for unrequited love? How many must I write to earn my existence?"

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Biphobia, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Sexual content, Addiction, Eating disorder, Body shaming, and Suicide

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.....

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Addiction, and Mental illness

Moderate: Colonisation

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

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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

coffeenoldbooks's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Read for Pages4Palestine readathon

I first want to say that I really enjoyed this book and wasn’t what I was expecting. This book has a flawed protagonist who discusses their journey of being a bisexual Palestinian American who suffers from addiction and anorexia. She goes through her self destructive habits and trying to better herself even after sabotaging her relationships one after the other. She discovers a lot of her root cause is a very emotionally unavailable mother whom she craved love and affection from. 

The bulk of the story is told while she is in rehab with flashbacks on where things went wrong for her and the decisions she made that she seemed to regret. She talks about her mother’s past and her childhood where she grew up in an occupied state and married young and gave up a lot of her dreams to only end up emotionally detached and regretting many things. We see how the protagonist understands this but does not pardon her mother for not being there and providing the love and affection she needed herself.

Other points of note in the book are talks of her feeling othered in many ways. Never feeling like she has a place to fit in. She is a Palestinian American and doesn’t fully feel like she fits in the American world but also not an Arabic world either. She feels like she has no place she truly belongs and it makes her longing for love an affection much deeper; craving some sense of belonging. 

The one thing I do truly wish there was more talk about is the last relationship she has with Anouk. I’d love to know more of how they were able to come to trust eachother and find the love she was craving. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and recommend it. I’d say to check some trigger warnings beforehand.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Addiction, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Sexual content, War, Biphobia, Homophobia, and Colonisation

hellichipmunk's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Biphobia, Addiction, Colonisation, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Sexism, Body shaming, Homophobia, Alcohol, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Genocide, Grief, Islamophobia, and Lesbophobia

katharina90's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

The main character is unlikeable and frustrating. She treats others horribly, but throws a fit when she receives the same treatment. 

The trauma at the root of her harmful choices isn't explored in a way that works for me, and without seeing much of a change in behavior I found it difficult to care. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Mental illness, Eating disorder, and Addiction

Minor: Colonisation and Drug abuse

dangselena's review against another edition

dark reflective sad 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

3.0

The timeline jumped around so much with little context so it was a bit hard to read. Side characters weren’t fleshed out enough to feel meaningful. The MC isn’t like able, which is fine, but there wasn’t much of a plot besides her being horrible to other people. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Biphobia, Islamophobia, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, Alcohol, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Homophobia, and Drug use

sydnec's review against another edition

emotional funny inspiring reflective medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infidelity, Alcohol, Homophobia, Eating disorder, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Pregnancy, Mental illness, and Sexism

errie's review against another edition

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Sexual content, Alcohol, Drug use, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Islamophobia, Pedophilia, Self harm, and Biphobia