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

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

3.0

I read this as part of 12 recs from 12 friends but sadly it just wasn’t for me 🙈

All the characters are awful and unlikeable: 
-Nasir thinks he’s “owed” a relationship with Feyi and is friends with her expecting she’ll change her mind about him at some point as if men and women can’t be friends.
-Joy is a lesbian and seems to fall into the predatory lesbian stereotype, constantly dating straight women (or straight passing?) and gets pissed off when they don’t want to leave their husbands/bfs?!
-Feyi liking a potential romantic partner’s dad; he’s old enough to be your dad girl 😳 She’s selfish and reckless as she does everything she wants without thinking about other peoples feelings and then seems to play the victim. I really didn’t like her.
-Alim also isn’t blameless-he knew how Nasir felt about Feyi and SLEPT WITH HER ANYWAYS!? Shit dad of the year award 


I did appreciate the exploration of grief and loss. I can also appreciate the writing style! I’ll also give credit because it did at least show me I don’t like huge age gap romances, now I know 😅

I also shouldn’t have listened to this one on audio because of all the sexual content; I don’t like romance on audio because it sounds much more cringy when narrated and just makes me uncomfortable 🙈 I wanted to be done with it so badly, I sped up the narration to 2x speed (I’m usually a max 1.5x listener). This is the second book I’ve read from Emezi and enjoyed it much more, so I’ll still give their other works a try!

Spice rating: 🌶️🌶️ (1.5-2/3)

Tropes: second chance, dilf/parent of friend, age gage (May-December romance)

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