Reviews tagging 'Biphobia'

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

101 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

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Addiction

Moderate: Biphobia

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

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship and Addiction

Moderate: Biphobia

Minor: War

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

spookytaco's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Biphobia, Emotional abuse, Bullying, and Grief

Moderate: Alcohol, Sexual content, Child abuse, Colonisation, Lesbophobia, and Toxic relationship

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

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Content Warnings

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

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

mayszn's review against another edition

emotional reflective

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

3.5

she’s the biggest hypocrite ever but she’s just like me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship

Moderate: Eating disorder, Sexual content, and Biphobia

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!

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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!

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Content Warnings

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