A review by meeklovestoread
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Now, I knew this book was about grief and romance going into it, but that's honestly all I knew. I really want to diversify my reading and this book had such high acclaim. Plus I found the title quite compelling so I picked it up and I was shockingly surprised at how much I enjoyed it (well, once the story picked up). 

I went not knowing the tropes of this book and I think this proved to be beneficial for me because if you were to tell me the tropes that were in this book initially I probably wouldn't have picked it up. As the book goes along you'll see that it turns into a forbidden romance with a significant age gap. I don't really care for tropes in books, however, these are usually things I don't gravitate toward which is why it came as a surprise how much I enjoyed reading the romance for this book. The characters seem very sweet, mature, and considerate of one another. I love how consent is an ongoing motif in this book considering we don't really see that much in romance books. And I did enjoy the friendship between Feyi and Joy (although I do wish they wouldn't encourage each other's bad decisions).

Now although I did enjoy the romance between the two characters, I feel like Nasir's feelings were completely justified.
Don't think just because I said his feelings were justified means that I encouraged his destructive behavior. Although the author lowkey tried to justify it, Feyi did take (maybe not deliberately) advantage of Nasir. Even though they weren't technically dating, Feyi obviously knew how much Nasir cared for her. Like what type of dude would fly out his situationship across the country for a week and offer her a chance to jumpstart her career? He had every right to be upset that she was fooling around with his dad of all people. While I do like her and Alim together Nasir and Lorraine are completely justified with their anger.
After reading this book, I understand how others may not like it and aren't able to see past the events that take place and that is completely understandable, but I surprisingly enjoyed it. It explored elements of grief, casual dating + love, bisexuality, art, food, and choosing yourself.
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