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mscalls's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Genocide, Infidelity, Outing, Toxic relationship, Islamophobia, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Colonisation, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Eating disorder
erinalt90's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
The ending is disappointing and the book overall is just - sporadic? I don't know. It doesn't work in my opinion.
I never read reviews for books before/during. But all the reviews who also gave it around 2-3.5 stars I agree with completely.
There were also tiny conflicting details/inconsistencies in the set up/characters. At one point someone is referred to as a "classmate" and three sentences later - while talking about the same character- they are referred to as "coworker." They are small little details but there are enough of them that they start to add up.
TW: potential child abuse
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There was also an entire section with another character and pregnancy/child fetish played a role and it was just- weird.
Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, and Gaslighting
yayokay's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Eating disorder, Islamophobia, Mental illness, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Biphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, and Drug use
kierscrivener's review against another edition
- 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
3.25
We follow a twenties something bi Palestinian woman as she navigates a breakup and her constant need to go for the unattainable and to cheat out of fear. We see beautiful and poignant moments throughout but there's something missing. And it might be what I came in looking and didn't see. But we see her acting out and reacting because of fears and insecurity, and her realization of her own mother's trauma but I never feel like she ever fully lowers her guards, and the end has some poignancy but not enough to feel resolved or as if this is a stepping off point.
I love quiet stories but I like when we explore things and she never quite had enough introspection or conversation to fully invest me.
I enjoyed my way throughout and would definitely give Arafat another book
Graphic: Homophobia, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Racism, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Infidelity, and Biphobia
Moderate: Eating disorder, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Addiction, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts
solenodon's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Addiction, Biphobia, Eating disorder, Grief, Homophobia, Racism, Xenophobia, Fatphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Domestic abuse, Islamophobia, and Cursing
now_booking's review against another edition
- 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
3.0
I haven’t read a lot of queer literature, but certainly none featuring an Arab, Muslim bisexual woman as the protagonist. Knowing that the author has experience with these intersections, I knew it would be non-cliché and sensitively and authentically handled. But then this wasn’t the predictable book one would expect about conflicts between sexuality and culture and religion. Indeed, this reads as a very secular book, there is a lot of Arab (and more specifically) Palestinian culture and history in this book, yes, but none of that is the main conflict with the unnamed protagonist’s reconciliation of her sexual identity. Nope. This is a book about love and the sometimes toxic and fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, and the generational impacts it can have. It’s a book about mental illness and addiction, about numbing brokenness, about reconciling with the things in you. It’s a book about sex and it’s a book with a lot of sex in it, but it’s not a sexy book. Sex in this book often feels like another manifestation of brokenness of looking for love in toxic places. The protagonist doesn’t “exist too much” so much as she’s conditioned by her upbringing to seek out the most toxic outcomes for herself. She is both a sympathetic and an unsympathetic protagonist. Her mother is toxic, but so is she. I had never heard of a love addiction before reading this book. I think it should be approached with the same sort of care for a potential trigger that one would approach any book about addiction. It’s pretty difficult to read some of the situations she gets into and it’s an exposition of how much addiction is an illness that ruins lives.
I think this was well-written. It’s not doing anything with highfalutin turns of phrase or anything extraordinarily fancy with language. There are some beautifully-expressed ideas, but that’s not the focus. Where the language of this book excels is in its simplicity and accessibility. It makes it a fast-paced read that anyone can read and understand without ambiguity. The emotions feel more raw, more visceral, less neat and tidy and perfectly processed because the language is so simple. There is no distance between the reader and the absolute messiness of the protagonist’s life. All of that said, I sort of struggled with the style of this novel. It was very... non-linear. It felt like a series of anecdotes of different timelines kind of loosely woven around the protagonist’s trajectory to healing and reconciling herself with her truth and her identity. I was interested in things like her relationship with her brother. The outcome of her relationships with her cousins. Who was she apart from a bisexual, Palestinian-American? How did she have all that money for travel, school etc? It was a little hard to feel immersed in this because it was only about such a specific segment of her life. There is good character development, but only in the area of her life that has to do with her addiction and with her mother. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the point is that her life is consumed by this conflict. Maybe the point of flashing in and out of her life in the revelation of the story was to flash in and out off her protagonist’s life the way she did in her own real life. Overall, I think I liked this. Perhaps I’m not passionate about it. But I loved getting into this heroine’s head and learning about her. I’ve seen reviews mention fears that this novel is bad bisexual rep contributing to biphobia. I can’t speak about the truth of that perception, but as a non-bi person, I felt very able to separate the protagonist’s sexuality from her toxic behaviour in relationships. I recommend this if you’re looking for a book about reconciling oneself with one’s sexuality and the internal conflict around that, or a novel about addiction, or one about complex mother-daughter relationship.
TW: this book may be immensely triggering to some readers. I have put the CWs on Storygraph but I’ll summarize to say, if you may be at all sensitive to any sort of triggering content, consider avoiding this one, or fortifying your mental health first.
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, Fatphobia, Islamophobia, Xenophobia, and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Bullying