Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

41 reviews

elliedesatge's review

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective 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? It's complicated

4.5


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foreverinastory's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful 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

5.0

Damn this was amazing! I should've read it sooner. Also someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is mainly set in Trinidad & Tobago?

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is a romance novel that follows Feyi, a grieving widow. After 5 years, Feyi thinks she's ready to go back on the dating scene. Feyi first finds Milan, who is hot and makes her feel attraction for the first time in a long time. But neither is ready or willing to open up, so after a brief friends with benefits fling, they go their separate ways. What Feyi doesn't expect is Milan's friend, Nasir, to call her immediately after and attempt to woo her.

Feyi feels something for Nasir, but she's wary of romance and dating since the death of her spouse, Jonah. The two agree to be friends and take it slow. The synopsis says these two are dating, but I think that's a mislabel. They agree to be friends first and foremost. Now Feyi goes into this relationship to eventually pursue something romantic with Nasir, but she's not quite ready to jump into it.

The two head off on a trip to meet Nasir's family and have Feyi attend an art show on the island. When Feyi meets Nasir's dad, Alim Blake, there's something between them that she can't deny. As she gets to know Alim, she finds someone who understands her pain of losing her spouse too soon. Something Nasir could never understand. Feyi is unsure how to navigate this growing attraction with Alim and her possible relationship with Nasir. Especially since she's starting to think Alim returns her attraction.

Look this book won't be for everyone. But I think it is an amazing second chance romance between two people who have lost people before. Something that really bothered me about Nasir's reaction to finding out about Feyi and Alim (who had only kissed up to that point) was that he felt entitled to Feyi's body and I'm not here for that. Even if you are in a relationship with someone, you don't owe them your body. You don't owe a partner sex. Consent is needed every single time and it can be revoked at ANY point. Kissing someone doesn't automatically mean you are going to have sex with them.

This book is very messy and maybe even a little unhinged, but relationships and life are fucking messy. Attraction doesn't always follow logic and most people can't turn their attraction off like a tap. I found the relationship between Feyi and Alim much more intimate, romantic and trusting than I did between Feyi and Nasir.

Lastly, Joy is the best and I love her with all my heart. Please Akwaeke can we have a companion/sequel about Joy.

Rep: Nigerian-American bisexual cis female MC with PTSD and anxiety, Afro-Carribean bisexual cis male side character, Afro-Carribean hetersexual cis male side character, Ghanian-American lesbian cis female side character, various Black and Afro-Carribean side characters.

CWs: Grief, death, sexual content, blood, death of parent, cursing, mental illness (PTSD and anxiety), biphobia/bimisia, injury/injury detail, homophobia/homomisia. Moderate: Violence, past car accident, domestic abuse, alcohol consumption, child death, suicidal thoughts, toxic relationship, misogyny, sexism, cancer mention.
 

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agnesbebon's review

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Messy, beautiful, alive. 

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republicofben's review

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

This book was such a well-written, profound exploration of grief that really resonated with me. The book opens on lighter, more salacious notes, only giving you bits and pieces of the protagonist's hidden feelings. But the author does such an expert job showing you more and more of Feyi as the book continues, and it was so easy to get caught up in her feelings. I absolutely recommend this book, though I'd recommend you take care to ensure you're feeling up to the jumps and bumps your heart will go through.

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ramreadsagain's review against another edition

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

4.5

One of my favourite romances ever! 

This is a messy slow-burn romance, an exploration of grief, an ode to cooking and Black art. It does contain the
age gap
trope which i’m never keen on but it was dealt with in pretty much a perfect way and i’m not really upset about it! 

The drawn out sequences of Feyi and Alim discussing their feelings in an open way was so amazingly done and felt truly realistic. A breath of fresh air compared to romances where they never have a proper deep conversation about things.
 

I’ll add more at some future point. 

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once_upon_a_storybook's review

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adventurous challenging emotional sad tense fast-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

2.0


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nav26's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-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

4.5

If you told me I'd be rooting for a main character to get with her kind-of-boyfriend's dad, I never would have believed you but wow. I was really rooting for them. Emezi does an amazing job of not expecting you to just accept this - they understand that you need time to process it, and so do the characters. It's a moral quandary that is dealt with extremely well and not just glossed over like in some romances. It feels difficult, and that difficulty makes it feel real. Emezi also had some absolutely beautiful writing, particularly when speaking about love or death. It's been a while since I've read writing like this. Reading passages about Feyi losing the love of her life was very tough, as it should have been to really portray how devastating a loss that is. This book made me very sad and very happy at the same time, and I adored it. 4.5 only because I felt it started out a bit slow. 

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blkbookbae's review

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emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

4.75

literally read this in one sitting 

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marena02's review

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dark emotional funny 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

5.0


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sarah984's review against another edition

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

2.0

I was really loving this book until about the 70% mark. Feyi was a great character with tons of personality, and even the side characters sparkled. The landscape descriptions were lush and the food descriptions were amazing (I read in the end notes that the author commissioned a menu from a pro chef to fit the characters and it shows). I loved the idea of Feyi getting messy and taking some risks to try and get her life moving again after her husband's sudden death in an accident.

However, the actual romance was bad. Alim just wasn't an interesting character to me. He was so bland despite his history, and he had this self conscious way of talking that made it sound like he was constantly vying for an A in therapy. He's in love with his son's girlfriend in like 3.5 seconds and he doesn't even have the excuse of being star struck.

Also in the second half the writing just gets really Wattpad-ish and bad, which I wasn't expecting from this author. Feyi "let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding" and I almost screamed.

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