Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - You Exist Too Much

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

60 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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lizzielulu3's review against another edition

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emotional fast-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

A big jumbled mess of garbage. I hated it. A true disgrace to the pride community to consider this a book about accepting yourself and coming into your own person.

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itsbumley's review against another edition

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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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minaestchan's review against another edition

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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

historicalmaterialgirl's review against another edition

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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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