Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - You Exist Too Much

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

32 reviews

coffeenoldbooks's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Read for Pages4Palestine readathon

I first want to say that I really enjoyed this book and wasn’t what I was expecting. This book has a flawed protagonist who discusses their journey of being a bisexual Palestinian American who suffers from addiction and anorexia. She goes through her self destructive habits and trying to better herself even after sabotaging her relationships one after the other. She discovers a lot of her root cause is a very emotionally unavailable mother whom she craved love and affection from.

The bulk of the story is told while she is in rehab with flashbacks on where things went wrong for her and the decisions she made that she seemed to regret. She talks about her mother’s past and her childhood where she grew up in an occupied state and married young and gave up a lot of her dreams to only end up emotionally detached and regretting many things. We see how the protagonist understands this but does not pardon her mother for not being there and providing the love and affection she needed herself.

Other points of note in the book are talks of her feeling othered in many ways. Never feeling like she has a place to fit in. She is a Palestinian American and doesn’t fully feel like she fits in the American world but also not an Arabic world either. She feels like she has no place she truly belongs and it makes her longing for love an affection much deeper; craving some sense of belonging.

The one thing I do truly wish there was more talk about is the last relationship she has with Anouk. I’d love to know more of how they were able to come to trust eachother and find the love she was craving.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and recommend it. I’d say to check some trigger warnings beforehand.

Content Warnings

hellichipmunk's review

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challenging emotional reflective 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

Content Warnings

katharina90's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

The main character is unlikeable and frustrating. She treats others horribly, but throws a fit when she receives the same treatment.

The trauma at the root of her harmful choices isn't explored in a way that works for me, and without seeing much of a change in behavior I found it difficult to care.

Content Warnings

dangselena's review

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dark reflective sad 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

3.0

The timeline jumped around so much with little context so it was a bit hard to read. Side characters weren’t fleshed out enough to feel meaningful. The MC isn’t like able, which is fine, but there wasn’t much of a plot besides her being horrible to other people.

Content Warnings