A review by nav26
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

If you told me I'd be rooting for a main character to get with her kind-of-boyfriend's dad, I never would have believed you but wow. I was really rooting for them. Emezi does an amazing job of not expecting you to just accept this - they understand that you need time to process it, and so do the characters. It's a moral quandary that is dealt with extremely well and not just glossed over like in some romances. It feels difficult, and that difficulty makes it feel real. Emezi also had some absolutely beautiful writing, particularly when speaking about love or death. It's been a while since I've read writing like this. Reading passages about Feyi losing the love of her life was very tough, as it should have been to really portray how devastating a loss that is. This book made me very sad and very happy at the same time, and I adored it. 4.5 only because I felt it started out a bit slow. 
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