Reviews with content warning for Eating disorder - You Exist Too Much

Our unnamed narrator is a young Palestinian-American woman who struggles with a love addiction, as well as a complicated relationship with her mother, and the intersection of her identities. Through a series of vignettes, we see what led her to this point and her tumultuous journey to recovery.

This was a challenging book, the narrator is way too far from perfect, but you want her to get better. Reading through her trauma and the mistakes she makes along the way is difficult to go through. It’s very different from my usual reads. It’s serious, complicated, sad, a far cry from my fluffy preferences.

It’s beautifully written and hard to stop reading. However, it’s not a book I find myself re-reading any time soon. It’s not a book I will be grabbing and thinking about constantly. And that’s fine. I’m not the type to usually reach for literary and serious books, it doesn’t make it any less of a good book. I am glad to have read this book, it’s a very reflective and stunning book.

And in a time where Palestinians are being dehumanized, genocided, and silenced, it makes this book even more necessary. We need to read more from Palestinians, support them, make them known, and make them heard.

Content Warnings

binevolentbookworm's review against another edition

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dark 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

4.0

“It is a bizarre and unsettling feeling, to exist in a liminal state between two realms, unable to attain full access to one or the other.”

i finally got around to reading this book and many have shared incredible and varying reviews, so this is less a formal review of mine, and more the feelings it dredged up for me articulated. (this is more personal than i usually get, so i thank you for endeavoring and enduring.)

–

i hear all of the time from friends, readers, movie goers, etc., “the main character was very unlikeable, but i liked her.”

so what is it about these people, most often women, who fit into the “unlikeable” character trope that makes us still, in the end, like them? i found myself contemplating this while reading YOU EXIST TOO MUCH, where the unnamed main character, a twenty something american palestinian woman, struggles with the “liminal state” of her identity and belonging; contributing to her self-destructivism, constant breaking of moral codes and only sometimes showing remorse (but only when she’s caught), along with her journey of healing. i got to about half way through the book and made a note in my reading journal here, “everyone talks about what an unlikable character she is, but i actually like her. i see some of my own behaviors reflected back at me, opening me up to forgiving myself for who i was in my early 20s.”

i wonder, when we read these books, or see these characters in tv, are we simply feeding into a voyeuristic nature? the parts of ourselves that enjoy bad reality television, rubbernecking, watching someone hurt themselves for the laugh (because yes, i am but a millennial who grew up watching jackass). is reading about self-destructing characters, or unlikeable women, the “safe” way to feed into that desire and, in turn, feel that we haven’t compromised our own morality?

i find, from a personal stance, that in many of these characters and their stories, i see etchings of my own weak moments, my own flaws, the most difficult parts of my own human nature reflected back at me. and while what makes these characters unlikable is flagrant, the circumstances often bizarre and over the top – the offenses not exactly as i have done or would actually do – they are still reminiscent, echos of moments i’m not proud of.

at first, all we see is a debauched, or maybe gross, apathetic character - someone who makes so many of the wrong decisions, hurts people seemingly with no mind of the outcome, but over the course of these stories, we are also given a framework for this, allowed a look into their mind in the midst of the pages, and we can step back, see the how and the why of these characters and their identities. sometimes they are given redemption arcs and we have the opportunity to forgive, and sometimes we’re left wanting, the end 'living rent free' in our minds, and we’re never in control of that, but we are in control of our own narrative.

in YOU EXIST TOO MUCH much of the main character’s exact experiences were unlike my own and quite frankly, she needed therapy beyond a month long stint in love addiction rehab, but i still found myself drawn to empathy and compassion, despite her constant actions to provoke otherwise, because she reflected back at me some of my darker thoughts and moments in life. it made me see that i am growing into enjoying reading these stories, and allowing space for these flawed characters to work up the more uncomfortable feelings in myself.

if you enjoyed this book, and want to read more books featuring unlikeable women, i recommend Luster, Milk Fed, and Nevada. bonus, if you want to take a break from reading - watch Fleabag!

–

other notes:

if you haven’t read this, check the CW.

i recognize that this book is written within the diasporic context and experience of an american palestinian woman, and while i chose to focus on the aspect of her unlikeability, it is important to note that the character's experience is influenced heavily by this fact. this is not the book that will educate you on the history of palestine. i applaud zaina arafat for having written this book in such a way that expects readers to have an understanding of palestinian history, and does not spoon feed the reader information that they should already know. i am glad i put off reading this until now, because in truth, i did not know much about the history of palestine prior to october.

Content Warnings

lerix4relur's review

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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

3.5

I liked this and what it did. It really reminded me of Bojack horseman by how self-destructive they both are. The MC was always trying to get approval and love from unattainable people but she confronted that into healthy relationships. She valued herself first and that was the main point of her growth. Not to focus on her mother and instead be okay with herself. Can I just say this is the ugliest book cover. No reason to why it looks that way, it seems like somebody added a bunch of millennial stickers and called it good.

Content Warnings

velvet_young's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

Content Warnings

sarahbearas's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book made me feel a lot of things - compassion, anxiety, sympathy, despair - but ultimately I felt a bit empty at the end. Maybe I just need to sit with this book for longer, synthesize the story more in order to come to a more complete understanding. And confession: I got about 200 pages in and then realized I was not reading a memoir. I don’t even know how to explain myself. But here’s what I will say: As a queer woman myself my God, some parts of the story just made me want to take a walk around the block (in a good way - Arafat is a very compelling author). I think the book does a good job in tackling the complexity of addiction, of our habits and defenses, and how it's rooted in our upbringing. How the cycle of self destruction is perpetuated and the effort it takes in order to break it. By the very nature of the topics at hand, the story is cyclical, and I will go as far as to say it's repetitive. The last hundred or so pages I was feeling like it was a slog. I just wish there was more urgency as it felt there was the first 80%. It felt too long and too quick all at once (the last 20% I mean).

Again, having just finished this recently, I think my feelings will change a little bit the more I sit and digest this. I think even with my dissatisfaction with the last bit of the book, I think it's still a very good read. The narrator feels very close to the reader, and I was very invested in the journey she took.

Solid 3 from me!

Content Warnings

linebech's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-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

Content Warnings

jillaay_h's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

nithya_natalya's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective sad 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 title was recommended on a number of lists of books by Palestinian authors to read in the wake of the current genocide. I picked this one up specifically because it is also queer. If you don't like characters who make messy, bad decisions, this may not be for you, but I loved it. I also enjoyed the way it was written in vignettes that were not always chronological. Past and ancestral traumas, intermingled with present pain and numbing. The MC's tendency to fall back into old patterns during moments of pain was frustrating but also deeply familiar and relatable.

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