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Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

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

69 reviews

mariasgraph's review

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

3.75


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em_h_ma's review against another edition

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inspiring reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

The story was rich, opulent, hot but I hated the main character so much. Even with all the reasoning, I just couldn’t get behind her actions. The story was quick and easy to read.

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llams's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-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? No

5.0

this is the most beautiful book i've read yet! i'm not great with the words but this was so moving and beautiful and full of love alongside the pain and ache

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sarahmcg's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful lighthearted 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

4.5

How did I read this book and end up cheering for the messy af FMC and the dad???

I guess for as much as I love a trope-filled rom-com, I can also really appreciate a complicated lit-fic love story, romance but also an exploration of grief, friendship, and art/creativity.

Read this if you love MESS, taboo/forbidden/age gap romance, finding love after loss, complicated FMC. 

The writing was very beautiful; poetic, with gorgeous descriptions of the tropical island mountain home, art, music, and food. This was my first read by Emezi and it won’t be my last.

The only critique I have is I totally understood the emotional connection that Feyi and Alim formed, but for some reason I still had a little bit of difficulty with the believability of their chemistry (not sure if it was maybe the age gap or something else?) - but overall I’d give 4.5⭐️

I want a book about Joy!!!

CW/TW: discussions of loss of spouse (in past but discussed throughout - 1) car accident 2) drowning), sexual content, descriptions of blood, domestic incident.

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tosleepperchancetoread's review

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emotional funny 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

2.5

I wish I could’ve given this book a higher rating. The descriptions of the food and the art and the sights and sounds were amazing. But everything else was just… meh. The MC drove me quite mad. And although there is depth to the connection between the main character and love interest, I couldn’t find myself rooting for them. If this was a dark romance then I would love the tropes but this just felt cringey at some parts.

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iftheshoef1tz's review

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challenging emotional tense medium-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

3.5

I was excited to read this book because it was billed as “messy characters being messy” and I saw two reviews that said that every character in the book was awful. I do think they were messy, as promised, but I don’t think they were as awful as I was expecting. I don’t agree with Feyi and Alim’s choices, but I think I understand why they were made. Out of a different type of grief, I did some shady things when I was younger. Two people I know from university were in separate relationships (one of them was engaged) before they met each other, then they left their current partners for each other. It caused huge scandal, but they had apparently found what they were missing in their other relationships, and they’re still together, ten years and four kids later. I think this kind of thing can and does happen.

My biggest beef with this book is that the set-up felt like it took forever (although I just checked the book and it’s not that many pages) and then Feyi and Alim fall for each other super fast. I am always a fan of a slow(er) burn, so maybe that’s my issue here, but I would have thought that Alim, at least, as Nasir’s father, would have really hit the brakes on anything for longer than he did. So much of the end was also not what I was expecting? A lot of it felt very pat and trite (
Milan calling randomly? For the first time, like…ever?
) and I really didn’t care for the way
Nasir and Feyi build this rapprochement by the end
, but it had only been, like…a couple weeks or something. 

There was a lot of beautiful writing in this book though, as well as thoughtful prose on grief and mourning. Just didn’t quite stick the landing for me.

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alli_andrews's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0


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taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

4.5


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caitlinemccann's review

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emotional funny reflective sad tense 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

4.5


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queenkath32's review

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emotional
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0


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