BOOK REVIEW: You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
Stories about and by queer Black women are a passion of mine, so if you're looking for your next literary obsession keep reading! Spoiler free!
“I think we’re just figuring out how to survive a world on fire… that it’s okay to be alive.”
This was a fabulous read! A delicious little cocktail of moral ambiguity, messy bisexuals, steamy sex scenes, and grief. Beautifully written, incredibly entertaining and completely unexpected!
It’s chaotic opening scene perfectly establishes the novel’s ethos: life is messy and unpredictable, and we are no better. The novel opens with Feyi diving head-first into dating, five years after the death of her husband. We follow her as she processes the loss of her late husband through her art. While finding herself in a series of convoluted romantic entanglements.
My dissatisfaction with the novel comes from the fact that I was promised a romance novel. The only thing thing this book has in common with a romance novel is how completely unrealistic the male characters are. There is a love story, but to call this a romance novel feels misguided. A romance novel requires for two people, who are unequivocally meant for each other, to fall in love and live happily ever after.
By the end of the book I felt deeply annoyed with Feyi and something between pity and disgust for the love interest. Although their chemistry is palpable and they share a deep understanding of each others pain. Between the inappropriate age gap and drama their love causes, the relationship feels tentative at best. However, maybe that’s the point.
This is a story about grief, before anything else. It calls into question the very notion of a happily ever after. Instead it focuses on the many different types of love and companionship that we get to experience in our lifetime. It’s a declaration that love takes many different forms, and despite our best efforts love exist outside of our control.
Reading this was a lovely reminder that it’s okay to fall apart and take time putting yourself back together. That it is okay to change your mind and even better to disappoint people.
“There are so many different types of love, so many ways someone can stay committed to you, stay in your life even if y’all aren’t together, you know? And none of these ways is more important than the others.”
Felicia’s Rating: 4 stars
Impact (how impactful was it personally or globally?): 2/5
Importance (how important is this book?): 3/5
Interest (did it hold my attention?): 4/5
Queer Representation: 5/5
Would I recommend? Yes!