Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

20 reviews

sapphicbookfae's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, War, and Racism

dianavdavidson_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Addiction, and Eating disorder

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, War, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Grief

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.

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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

yayokay's review against another edition

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Islamophobia, Mental illness, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Biphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Homophobia, and Drug use

kierscrivener's review against another edition

challenging emotional 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

3.25

I am not completely sure how I feel about it. I expected something vastly different. The title and the synopsis really focuses on her relationship with her mother, heritage and sexuality. And it was. It did advertise vignettes, but I guess it was told a little too progressively to be snippets and too scattered to feel progression.

We follow a twenties something bi Palestinian woman as she navigates a breakup and her constant need to go for the unattainable and to cheat out of fear. We see beautiful and poignant moments throughout but there's something missing. And it might be what I came in looking and didn't see. But we see her acting out and reacting because of fears and insecurity, and her realization of her own mother's trauma but I never feel like she ever fully lowers her guards, and the end has some poignancy but not enough to feel resolved or as if this is a stepping off point.

I love quiet stories but I like when we explore things and she never quite had enough introspection or conversation to fully invest me.

I enjoyed my way throughout and would definitely give Arafat another book 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Racism, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Infidelity, and Biphobia

Moderate: Eating disorder, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Addiction, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Suicidal thoughts

solenodon's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Biphobia, Eating disorder, Grief, Homophobia, Racism, Xenophobia, Fatphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Domestic abuse, Islamophobia, and Cursing

holreads's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Eating disorder, Domestic abuse, Biphobia, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Suicide and Suicidal thoughts

redwrapped's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Biphobia, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Suicidal thoughts

_lia_reads_'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, and Suicidal thoughts

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.

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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.