Skip to main content

You Exist Too Much - Zaina Arafat

 


Genre: Fiction | LGBT+ | Romance

Release Date: June 2020

Publisher:  Catapult


Here, she exists. Now, in Brooklyn, she's been accepted into her dream writing programme and living with Anna, her first serious girlfriend. But to many, her true self doesn't exist. Her own Mother doesn't know she has a girlfriend, and she's still too afraid to even look at Anna too lovingly in public.

But living a half life for so long has taken its toll, and soon she finds herself acting out, chasing all her longings, desires and desperations. Her fantasies leak into reality and the boundaries begin real and pretend start to blur as her life and her relationships slip away from her. Realising she is becoming untethered, she seeks help to stop the destructive obsessions that have taken over her life. She's looking for something, something to heal the pain of her past, something to bring her home, something to make her finally feel like she can exist truly as herself. 

"I turned and faced the wall to hide my laughter. We were all so perfectly absurd, so perfectly pathetic."

You Exist Too Much is a story that contains multitudes - it holds both pain and joy, despair and hope, destruction and creation. It's a coming-of-age story, a coming out story and a story of recovery all at once. 

Our main character is a nameless bisexual American-Palestinian in her thirties - and she isn't very likeable but she is so loveable. She had serious issues, treated people badly, and was irritating a lot but when you get to know her you understand why, and she becomes painfully relatable to so many people, reflecting back at the reader. She isn't a neat, perfectly packaged character with a clear story arc, she's messy and confusing and her entire journey is so very real. There have been some concerns about representing a bisexual character in a chaotic, commitment-phobic manner that may feed into some negative stereotypes about bisexuality as a whole, but this story doesn't link the two in a critical way, more shows how her experience of being bisexual has shaped and affected her relating to treatment and oppression. 

"To be a woman who desired another woman seemed even worse, especially shameful and shocking in its lack of reverence for the male-centric culture. Why would you want to exclude men, the stronger, better gender, from the equation?"

I flew through this beautiful novel in one sitting, it's short conversation-like chapters made it so easy to read and almost felt like reading someones private journal, the whole story felt intimate and despite the wide cast of characters and jumps between now and then, it was simple to follow. 

This is a striking statement about our innate human longing for connection and meaning, about sexuality and identity and love. Ultimately, this is a love letter to any woman who has been told they are too much and not enough at the same time. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

CW: Eating Disorders, Drugs, Underage Sexual Activity, Addiction, Alcohol, Sexual Imagery. 


This book was part of the Books That Matter subscription - a monthly subscription package with brilliant books and other treats. Books That Matter is a beautiful feminist book subscription service that want to change the inequality that female voices face in writing and put the classics of tomorrow in readers hands. Out of every 16 books in the CGSE curriculum, only one will be written by a woman - and BTM want that to change. Every box has carefully selected books and treats from feminist, LGBTQ+ and black-owned businesses. For more information, visit https://www.booksthatmatter.co.uk/our-story/

Please note: I am not endorsed by BTM, I just really like them. 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

REVIEW: This Could Be Us by Clare McGowan

Genre: Fiction | Literary Fiction Release Date: Expected 1st June 2023 Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group | Corsair  Kate has done the unthinkable. She'd worked hard to build a perfect life for herself, while ignoring her growing unhappiness. But when her second child was born profoundly disabled, reality hit. Unable to cope, Kate left - disappearing without a trace. She ends up in LA, with a glittering career and a new family of sorts, but the guilt is still suffocating. Husband Andrew was left to pick up the pieces and care for their disabled daughter and angry, confused son. Bereft and broken, he leaned on Olivia, Kate's best friend. She's been by his side ever since, ignoring her own needs to meet his. Years later, Andrew has written a memoir about his daughter learning to communicate against all odds. But when Kate's new producer husband decides he wants to make a film of it, their worlds collide once again. Now, Kate must return to the life she abandoned and reck...
Post a Comment
Read more

REVIEW: Live, Laugh, Lesbian by Helen Scott

Genre: Non-Fiction | Memoir | LGTBQ+  Release Date: 19th October 2023 Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Part memoir, part guide, part conversation and all queer joy — Live, Laugh, Lesbian is a brilliantly warm and friendly journey into the queer experience, not only from the author but from plenty of other lesbian, queer, bisexual and pansexual contributors who bring a unique viewpoint and voice and also show a beautiful diverse, intersectional scope of the queer spectrum and welcomes in queer people and allies of any kind to come feel the love. The book is very conversational, talking to the reader in a fun, friendly way — at times I rolled my eyes as the use of “famalam” but as a previous patron of Colours and Chicagos I’m not in a position to judge the Essex-isms. It’s full of anecdotes and observations that were witty and relatable as well as talking is through the more difficult side of queerness like dealing with workplace discrimination, religious trauma and coming out to family...
Post a Comment
Read more

BOOK TOUR STOP x RANDOM THINGS TOURS: Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen

  " This town has secrets that are best left alone." Author Hannah is a success, on paper at least. She's receiving critical acclaim and praise worldwide and her work is regarded as some of the best. She writes literature, not just books. But the reality is, outside of the literary circles nobody actually reads her work. But when she finally snaps at a book event and publicly criticises the genre fiction books that outsell hers, claiming they're easy and mindless she's challenged to write her own crime fiction novel in just thirty days by an author she loathes. Desperate not to lose to him, her editor arranges for her to spend a month in a quiet, cold village in Iceland hoping that the solitude will spark inspiration.  But instead of writing a murder story - she's in one . Just before she arrives, the body of a young man is pulled from the icy waters and her search for ideas soon becomes a search for a killer. And if she's not careful, she might end up the...
Post a Comment
Read more