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

1.0

There is a previous book of this author’s that I wholeheartedly adore. It is easily one of my most impactful reads of the last few years. Due to this, I went into this novel blind, as I usually do, to catastrophic results. I was expecting some sort of gritty commentary on anything at all and was instead met with a contemporary romance. This, in itself, was not the issue. I like romance as a genre! The problem here was that none of the characters were likable from the start and all of their decisions made them worse! 

We start with a woman who lost her fiance in a car accident five years ago and hasn’t been emotionally or sexually active since. She begins the book by fucking some dude in a bathroom and making this guy a regular thing. When they decide they’re bored she starts (sort of?) seeing one of his friends. She wants to take it slow and keeps reiterating that they’re friends. He does the same but it’s immensely clear that nothing about either of them has the intention of friends. After knowing each other for a blip of time he flies her to his home in another country for her art to be displayed in a show that he made happen for her. Friends, right?

During this time she falls for his loaded celebrity chef father???

Just. None of the timeline or character reactions really made any sense in this. The girl and dad at the end share the same grief and then talk about maybe getting married in the future?? It felt so terrible and wild. There is not enough time spent building any of these relationships so you’re left not caring about any of them. There is one (1) fun character and they are the reason for the single star.