A review by escape_through_pages
You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

📖 REVIEW 📖

A romance for those who don’t typically read romance; so they say. And I see why, Emezi has written this with more grit and edge than you would get with a Beth O’Leary. 🫢

The Death of Vivek Oji was one of my top reads of 2020, so I was intrigued to know if Emezi could win me over to the romance genre with their writing. In some ways they did. I was quickly hooked by the steamy start and very quickly read this over a few unexpected days I had off work with C-ovid last month. 

It charts the journey back into sex and relationships of Feyi as she emerges from the acute grief that followed the sudden death of her husband and childhood sweetheart at a premature age. Emezi documents believably, the sense of loss and complexities of life and love after such a trauma. I particularly felt her descriptions of Feyi’s sense of wanting to really live and feel alive, and how that influenced her behaviour and choices, to be on the mark. When you’re in a situation or a time in your life that you know has been denied to someone significant to you, there is a sort of sense of needing to act each day, take risks, and grab all life has to offer. This can feel like a sort of self-imposed pressure to not just meander through each day and can lead to both good and bad life choices. I liked this inclusion and exploration.

 ‘To hell with what trouble this would bring, she was alive. She was fucking ALIVE, and Feyi knew that in that moment, she would burn anything, everything, a whole world just to hold on to that feeling.’

The book also weaves in the power of art and creativity in being an outlet and way to process emotions and grief, which added further depth.

My issue, perhaps unsurprisingly given my general feelings towards romance reads, was the main romance itself. After finding Feyi’s earlier couplings to be fun to read, her ‘main event’ felt a bit unbelievable and I didn’t buy into this reciprocated instant attraction of forbidden love. I was rooting for her to take another direction just because I didn’t want to read more of the one she was pursuing. What I could have read more of is Feyi’s conversations with her best friend. These were entertaining and depicted the strength and support true friendships can provide.

Despite my criticism of the romance itself, Feyi is a great protagonist and her journey of learning to love again and the growth is an engaging, entertaining read that kept me turning the pages.