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sarahreadsromance's review against another edition
challenging
dark
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
5.0
If I could give this more than 5 stars I would. Emezi illustrates the complexity of love and grief. They so clearly communicates that life can be messy as hell but beautiful all the same. There is a depth in the emotions they write that I can’t even fathom.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Car accident, Grief, and Sexual content
Moderate: Drug use, Domestic abuse, Alcohol, and Homophobia
venetiana's review against another edition
******
THE ORIGINAL BOOK IS BRILLIANT. ✨
This explanation is about the German audio book:
⬇️
******
The *German* version is badly translated. I cringed!
Admittedly, while the narrator has an amazing voice, the German audiobook was also not well read, and some things were just pronounced wrong, which kept pulling me out of the story.
THE ORIGINAL BOOK IS BRILLIANT. ✨
This explanation is about the German audio book:
⬇️
******
The *German* version is badly translated. I cringed!
Admittedly, while the narrator has an amazing voice, the German audiobook was also not well read, and some things were just pronounced wrong, which kept pulling me out of the story.
Content Warnings
Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Grief, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Death, Violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Racism, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Car accident, Domestic abuse, Classism, Gaslighting, Biphobia, Bullying, Infidelity, Medical content, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia
snaileton's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
contemporary romance isn’t really my thing (read it for the florence + the machine title lol) but found myself enjoying it for the most part! the conversations of “should we or should we not” in regards to the main relationship got quite repetitive, and i wasn’t sold on the main couple falling in love so quickly, though they are quite sweet together. the insta-lust (teetering on instalove) upon meeting alim at the airport threw me out of it. with the blurb describing that she was attracted to someone she definitely shouldn’t be looking at and an early chapter reveal of alim being a widower, it was clear who the main couple would be. i would have liked to see the pair get to know each other and share their similar hurts and develop the relationship from there, rather than love at first sight. loved the bi rep and the friendship between feyi and joy. not the strongest hit for me, but looking forward to reading more from Emezi in their other works.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Sexual content, Death, and Car accident
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Alcohol and Homophobia
venetiana's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
tense
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
5.0
Best book I've read in a long time. Sometimes I wanted to highlight All the Words, the writing is beautiful.
Very emotional (in a good way) and tender.
Very emotional (in a good way) and tender.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Grief, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Death of parent, Homophobia, Misogyny, and Sexual content
Minor: Biphobia, Outing, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Sexism, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Homophobia, Alcohol, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, and Panic attacks/disorders
jamie_rich's review
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Car accident
Moderate: Grief, Cursing, Alcohol, and Blood
friendly_neighborhood_grandma's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Car accident, Grief, Sexual content, Blood, and Alcohol
Moderate: Alcohol, Biphobia, Racial slurs, and Cursing
Minor: Child death
fromthefoxhole's review
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
4.0
Feyi lost her husband 5 years ago, and has been coming to terms with it ever since. One particularly reckless evening leads her to Milan, who leads her to Nasir, a sweet and charming man who offers to whisk her away to the Caribbean and get her art in front of people who could make all of her dreams come true.
She commits to going, just as friends, only to realize upon arrival that his "rich af dad" is actually celebrity chef, Alim Blake. Not only that, but there's something raw and magnetic between herself and Alim, which is less than conducive to her friendship with Nasir.
When an opportunity opens up to stay on the island longer to do a personal piece, she jumps at the chance, hoping that it will boost her bank account and give her a chance to spend some one on one time with Alim.
I gotta be honest, this book is MESSY but also incredibly captivating. I didn't really agree with many of the choices made by the characters, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from watching everything unravel. I particularly enjoyed Feyi's descriptions of grief, the way her art pieced together the immense love she carried with tragedy.
She commits to going, just as friends, only to realize upon arrival that his "rich af dad" is actually celebrity chef, Alim Blake. Not only that, but there's something raw and magnetic between herself and Alim, which is less than conducive to her friendship with Nasir.
When an opportunity opens up to stay on the island longer to do a personal piece, she jumps at the chance, hoping that it will boost her bank account and give her a chance to spend some one on one time with Alim.
I gotta be honest, this book is MESSY but also incredibly captivating. I didn't really agree with many of the choices made by the characters, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from watching everything unravel. I particularly enjoyed Feyi's descriptions of grief, the way her art pieced together the immense love she carried with tragedy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Cursing, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Biphobia
jazhandz's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
One of Emezi’s consistent strengths is in their character work, and Feyi might be one of my favorite characters they’ve written so far. Even when the pacing was a little funky, Feyi was such a strong and fantastic character.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content and Grief
Moderate: Car accident, Alcohol, Death, and Infidelity
Minor: Violence, Death of parent, and Child death
sorcha's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Car accident, Sexual content, Death, and Grief
Minor: Drug use, Violence, Alcohol, Death of parent, and Blood
icarusandthesun's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
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
1.25
this could've been nice you know. the writing was beautifully lyrical and i liked the themes of death and grief, and the talk about art and food was wonderfully comfortable.
but the rest... not so much.
this felt like a reality show in book form. like milf manor, but make it dilf manor and also erase all the fun because that shit wants you to take it seriously.
i hated all the characters. and i understand the situation in this book is messy and there's no real right or wrong, but the characters handled all of it so poorly, and how they acted just made me livid.
like feyi for example. so let me preface this by saying, feyi and her best friend do absolutely NOT pass the bechdel test. all they talk about is men (or love interests in general), and about fucking and their relationship problems. i swear, they do not talk about anything else, and it made it sort of hard to believe they're best friends.
but anyways, feyi - super unlikable, and there's no real depth to her character. her whole personality orbits around her dead husband and the art she creates ABOUT said dead husband and fucking her lover's dad. there was absolutely nothing else to her character, nothing to grasp, nothing to relate to or sympathise with.
what especially pissed me off was that she acted like she was so much better than nasir after he found out about them and lashed out at her. sure, he's an asshole for that, but the way she thought she had the high-ground was so annoying to me? because she's not at all better than him - she fucks her date's DAD man.
i sympathised with none of the characters, because they were all just the same shade of shitty.
still i feel like the author did nasir dirty. his reaction was extremely out of character, which i mean i guess makes sense, because you never know how a person truly is, but it was so INSANELY out of character, it felt like the author wrote him to be a shitty person so the reader feels bad for feyi and alim, even though nasir was nothing but a sweetheart at the beginning.
oh, and feyi and alim - don't even get me started. they bonded over grief for their lost loves, which is a nice icebreaker, right, but their entire relationship is built on that one thing they have in common. they had no chemistry whatsoever, and not any more mutual interests except maybe food and art but those conversations were pretty shallow and/or only there to build sexual tension (literally i will never get the image of them licking foam of each other's hands out of my head).
their relationship and love felt ingenuine and if this was real life, i doubt it would last.
but okay, let's end this on like a brighter note. i enjoyed the general trope of falling in love after a tragedy like that.
i also really loved feyi's art pieces and how they were described. as an artist myself, those fascinated me a lot.
and also, i fully support the idea of "older" people pursuing relationships, because we were conditioned to believe that new and fresh love is only for the young, and that you should stop trying at a certain age.
alim chose his children over love the first time and i thought it was nice to watch him coming out of his shell, because in the greater scheme of things, he's still young, and has long years of life still in front of him, and he deserves love, even if his children don't like it.
but you know... maybe not with your son's girlfriend next time.
but the rest... not so much.
this felt like a reality show in book form. like milf manor, but make it dilf manor and also erase all the fun because that shit wants you to take it seriously.
i hated all the characters. and i understand the situation in this book is messy and there's no real right or wrong, but the characters handled all of it so poorly, and how they acted just made me livid.
like feyi for example. so let me preface this by saying, feyi and her best friend do absolutely NOT pass the bechdel test. all they talk about is men (or love interests in general), and about fucking and their relationship problems. i swear, they do not talk about anything else, and it made it sort of hard to believe they're best friends.
but anyways, feyi - super unlikable, and there's no real depth to her character. her whole personality orbits around her dead husband and the art she creates ABOUT said dead husband and fucking her lover's dad. there was absolutely nothing else to her character, nothing to grasp, nothing to relate to or sympathise with.
what especially pissed me off was that she acted like she was so much better than nasir after he found out about them and lashed out at her. sure, he's an asshole for that, but the way she thought she had the high-ground was so annoying to me? because she's not at all better than him - she fucks her date's DAD man.
i sympathised with none of the characters, because they were all just the same shade of shitty.
still i feel like the author did nasir dirty. his reaction was extremely out of character, which i mean i guess makes sense, because you never know how a person truly is, but it was so INSANELY out of character, it felt like the author wrote him to be a shitty person so the reader feels bad for feyi and alim, even though nasir was nothing but a sweetheart at the beginning.
oh, and feyi and alim - don't even get me started. they bonded over grief for their lost loves, which is a nice icebreaker, right, but their entire relationship is built on that one thing they have in common. they had no chemistry whatsoever, and not any more mutual interests except maybe food and art but those conversations were pretty shallow and/or only there to build sexual tension (literally i will never get the image of them licking foam of each other's hands out of my head).
their relationship and love felt ingenuine and if this was real life, i doubt it would last.
but okay, let's end this on like a brighter note. i enjoyed the general trope of falling in love after a tragedy like that.
i also really loved feyi's art pieces and how they were described. as an artist myself, those fascinated me a lot.
and also, i fully support the idea of "older" people pursuing relationships, because we were conditioned to believe that new and fresh love is only for the young, and that you should stop trying at a certain age.
alim chose his children over love the first time and i thought it was nice to watch him coming out of his shell, because in the greater scheme of things, he's still young, and has long years of life still in front of him, and he deserves love, even if his children don't like it.
but you know... maybe not with your son's girlfriend next time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Sexual content, Car accident, and Death
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail