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the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This book tackles a lot of deep issues, like addiction, eating disorders, abusive parents and coming to terms with sexuality and with trauma. The author does a great job at tackling these heavy and difficult subjects throughout the book, while incorporating beautiful prose and creating interesting characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Biphobia
Moderate: Addiction and Alcohol
Minor: Death, Sexual content, Drug abuse, and Cursing
erinalt90's review against another edition
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I really had high hopes for this book. It had a great start and moved fast. around 40% it started to get slow and by 60% not only was it boring but it was a completely different book. I think Arafat is a great writer but she seems more like a short story/anthology writer.
The ending is disappointing and the book overall is just - sporadic? I don't know. It doesn't work in my opinion.
I never read reviews for books before/during. But all the reviews who also gave it around 2-3.5 stars I agree with completely.
There were also tiny conflicting details/inconsistencies in the set up/characters. At one point someone is referred to as a "classmate" and three sentences later - while talking about the same character- they are referred to as "coworker." They are small little details but there are enough of them that they start to add up.
TW: potential child abuse
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There was also an entire section with another character and pregnancy/child fetish played a role and it was just- weird.
The ending is disappointing and the book overall is just - sporadic? I don't know. It doesn't work in my opinion.
I never read reviews for books before/during. But all the reviews who also gave it around 2-3.5 stars I agree with completely.
There were also tiny conflicting details/inconsistencies in the set up/characters. At one point someone is referred to as a "classmate" and three sentences later - while talking about the same character- they are referred to as "coworker." They are small little details but there are enough of them that they start to add up.
TW: potential child abuse
*
*
*
*
*
*
There was also an entire section with another character and pregnancy/child fetish played a role and it was just- weird.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, and Gaslighting
samisal's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-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
4.75
I really loved reading this. The central focus of this book is not plot or even the characters as much as the relationships. It is a portrait of the protagonist's many relationships, romantic, familial, and otherwise. I found the writing to be really clever and the narrator to be complicated and beautiful. I feel like she becomes your friend. I hope to see more Arab-American fiction that pushes the boundaries of our narratives like this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Addiction
Minor: Eating disorder, Drug abuse, and Alcoholism
marabdelmageed's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
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
5.0
I quite liked this book. The only drawbacks, in my opinion, are the depictions of personality disorders and the use of ableist language.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and War
Moderate: Abandonment, Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Colonisation, Cursing, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Islamophobia, and Rape
202claire's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Sexual content
Moderate: Biphobia, Colonisation, Homophobia, Islamophobia, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Outing, and Religious bigotry
yayokay's review against another edition
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Islamophobia, Mental illness, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Biphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, and Drug use
alenezela99's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I did not like the main, and didn't want to be in her head for so long
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Alcoholism and Biphobia
now_booking's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
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
3.0
It’s not hard to synthesize my feelings about this book into a review, it’s just hard to determine whether my feelings fall into feeling more positively or negatively about it. This wasn’t exactly what I expected. The premise is that the unnamed queer protagonist is a somewhat closeted Palestinian-American student who’s managed to live a lot of life and study and travel the world. Yet despite all she has going for her, she is desperate to find the love she and acceptance she craves from her mother, leading her to a lot of toxic habits and addictions, including a love addiction.
I haven’t read a lot of queer literature, but certainly none featuring an Arab, Muslim bisexual woman as the protagonist. Knowing that the author has experience with these intersections, I knew it would be non-cliché and sensitively and authentically handled. But then this wasn’t the predictable book one would expect about conflicts between sexuality and culture and religion. Indeed, this reads as a very secular book, there is a lot of Arab (and more specifically) Palestinian culture and history in this book, yes, but none of that is the main conflict with the unnamed protagonist’s reconciliation of her sexual identity. Nope. This is a book about love and the sometimes toxic and fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, and the generational impacts it can have. It’s a book about mental illness and addiction, about numbing brokenness, about reconciling with the things in you. It’s a book about sex and it’s a book with a lot of sex in it, but it’s not a sexy book. Sex in this book often feels like another manifestation of brokenness of looking for love in toxic places. The protagonist doesn’t “exist too much” so much as she’s conditioned by her upbringing to seek out the most toxic outcomes for herself. She is both a sympathetic and an unsympathetic protagonist. Her mother is toxic, but so is she. I had never heard of a love addiction before reading this book. I think it should be approached with the same sort of care for a potential trigger that one would approach any book about addiction. It’s pretty difficult to read some of the situations she gets into and it’s an exposition of how much addiction is an illness that ruins lives.
I think this was well-written. It’s not doing anything with highfalutin turns of phrase or anything extraordinarily fancy with language. There are some beautifully-expressed ideas, but that’s not the focus. Where the language of this book excels is in its simplicity and accessibility. It makes it a fast-paced read that anyone can read and understand without ambiguity. The emotions feel more raw, more visceral, less neat and tidy and perfectly processed because the language is so simple. There is no distance between the reader and the absolute messiness of the protagonist’s life. All of that said, I sort of struggled with the style of this novel. It was very... non-linear. It felt like a series of anecdotes of different timelines kind of loosely woven around the protagonist’s trajectory to healing and reconciling herself with her truth and her identity. I was interested in things like her relationship with her brother. The outcome of her relationships with her cousins. Who was she apart from a bisexual, Palestinian-American? How did she have all that money for travel, school etc? It was a little hard to feel immersed in this because it was only about such a specific segment of her life. There is good character development, but only in the area of her life that has to do with her addiction and with her mother. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the point is that her life is consumed by this conflict. Maybe the point of flashing in and out of her life in the revelation of the story was to flash in and out off her protagonist’s life the way she did in her own real life. Overall, I think I liked this. Perhaps I’m not passionate about it. But I loved getting into this heroine’s head and learning about her. I’ve seen reviews mention fears that this novel is bad bisexual rep contributing to biphobia. I can’t speak about the truth of that perception, but as a non-bi person, I felt very able to separate the protagonist’s sexuality from her toxic behaviour in relationships. I recommend this if you’re looking for a book about reconciling oneself with one’s sexuality and the internal conflict around that, or a novel about addiction, or one about complex mother-daughter relationship.
TW: this book may be immensely triggering to some readers. I have put the CWs on Storygraph but I’ll summarize to say, if you may be at all sensitive to any sort of triggering content, consider avoiding this one, or fortifying your mental health first.
I haven’t read a lot of queer literature, but certainly none featuring an Arab, Muslim bisexual woman as the protagonist. Knowing that the author has experience with these intersections, I knew it would be non-cliché and sensitively and authentically handled. But then this wasn’t the predictable book one would expect about conflicts between sexuality and culture and religion. Indeed, this reads as a very secular book, there is a lot of Arab (and more specifically) Palestinian culture and history in this book, yes, but none of that is the main conflict with the unnamed protagonist’s reconciliation of her sexual identity. Nope. This is a book about love and the sometimes toxic and fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, and the generational impacts it can have. It’s a book about mental illness and addiction, about numbing brokenness, about reconciling with the things in you. It’s a book about sex and it’s a book with a lot of sex in it, but it’s not a sexy book. Sex in this book often feels like another manifestation of brokenness of looking for love in toxic places. The protagonist doesn’t “exist too much” so much as she’s conditioned by her upbringing to seek out the most toxic outcomes for herself. She is both a sympathetic and an unsympathetic protagonist. Her mother is toxic, but so is she. I had never heard of a love addiction before reading this book. I think it should be approached with the same sort of care for a potential trigger that one would approach any book about addiction. It’s pretty difficult to read some of the situations she gets into and it’s an exposition of how much addiction is an illness that ruins lives.
I think this was well-written. It’s not doing anything with highfalutin turns of phrase or anything extraordinarily fancy with language. There are some beautifully-expressed ideas, but that’s not the focus. Where the language of this book excels is in its simplicity and accessibility. It makes it a fast-paced read that anyone can read and understand without ambiguity. The emotions feel more raw, more visceral, less neat and tidy and perfectly processed because the language is so simple. There is no distance between the reader and the absolute messiness of the protagonist’s life. All of that said, I sort of struggled with the style of this novel. It was very... non-linear. It felt like a series of anecdotes of different timelines kind of loosely woven around the protagonist’s trajectory to healing and reconciling herself with her truth and her identity. I was interested in things like her relationship with her brother. The outcome of her relationships with her cousins. Who was she apart from a bisexual, Palestinian-American? How did she have all that money for travel, school etc? It was a little hard to feel immersed in this because it was only about such a specific segment of her life. There is good character development, but only in the area of her life that has to do with her addiction and with her mother. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the point is that her life is consumed by this conflict. Maybe the point of flashing in and out of her life in the revelation of the story was to flash in and out off her protagonist’s life the way she did in her own real life. Overall, I think I liked this. Perhaps I’m not passionate about it. But I loved getting into this heroine’s head and learning about her. I’ve seen reviews mention fears that this novel is bad bisexual rep contributing to biphobia. I can’t speak about the truth of that perception, but as a non-bi person, I felt very able to separate the protagonist’s sexuality from her toxic behaviour in relationships. I recommend this if you’re looking for a book about reconciling oneself with one’s sexuality and the internal conflict around that, or a novel about addiction, or one about complex mother-daughter relationship.
TW: this book may be immensely triggering to some readers. I have put the CWs on Storygraph but I’ll summarize to say, if you may be at all sensitive to any sort of triggering content, consider avoiding this one, or fortifying your mental health first.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Self harm, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, Fatphobia, Islamophobia, Xenophobia, and Adult/minor relationship
Minor: Bullying
alylentz's review against another edition
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Definitely compelling, couldn't put it down. A great portrait of a self-destructive protagonist and how nonlinear and incremental progress can be when you're trying to change your life. I did feel like the pacing was a little odd: there were certain storylines that I expected the book to end on where it continued, though I was ultimately satisfied by the ending. I would note that in the audiobook, it felt like flashbacks flitted in and out of what was happening in the present-tense and were sometimes hard to keep track of, so I'd recommend the print version to people.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Islamophobia, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Drug abuse
Minor: Self harm
cheye13's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I procrastinated reading this book all year because I knew it would be a tough read, especially if/because I might identify with the protagonist. For some reason (probably the tags/lists I found it in), I was not prepared for it to be so beautifully written. The content also took me by surprise, and I feel the synopsis doesn't do the story justice at all. In addition to being about the intersection of the narrator's racial/ethnic, queer, and gender identities, it's also very much about trauma, cyles, and addictive and destructive behavior.
The gorgeous writing makes the difficult subject matter easy to consume, but I still felt as though the book as a whole turned me inside out. I did find the narrative impossible to conceptualize linearly, but I liked that. The meandering, nonlinear timeline combined with the evocative language and vivid detail allowed me to become fully immersed in every individual scene before being pushed or pulled into another without warning.
In a lesser novel, a number of stereotypes would stand out as flaws, but they instead translate as realistic due to the nuances and depth of this story and the narrator. A beautiful book that I absolutely recommend.
The gorgeous writing makes the difficult subject matter easy to consume, but I still felt as though the book as a whole turned me inside out. I did find the narrative impossible to conceptualize linearly, but I liked that. The meandering, nonlinear timeline combined with the evocative language and vivid detail allowed me to become fully immersed in every individual scene before being pushed or pulled into another without warning.
In a lesser novel, a number of stereotypes would stand out as flaws, but they instead translate as realistic due to the nuances and depth of this story and the narrator. A beautiful book that I absolutely recommend.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Biphobia, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, and Sexual content
Minor: Cursing, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Grief, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts
A lot of the listed content warnings are mentioned in a flashback mode or treated as though they're completely in the past, regardless of the nonlinear storyline (i.e. the disordered eating is discussed only in post-recovery terms, the drug abuse was emotionally reactionary and explored, etc). The pedophilia is in the terms of an underaged character in sexual situations, not in terms of an adult actively engaging in pedophilia.