Incisive character study into a young Palestinian-American woman struggling with her identity and her relationship with her mother. I often have a hard time reading books that take place in a treatment center (as much of this one does), but the constant flashbacks in this one were so well done and definitely added to my investment in the unnamed narrator. I also enjoyed the small trips to Beirut, the West Bank and Amman in the character's memory.

The narrator of Zaina Arafat’s You Exist Too Much is the kind of person who would, in real life, drive me nuts. She sabotages herself. She makes bad decisions about so many things. This novel centers on one of the few good decisions this narrator has made in her hectic life. She decides to go to a month-long retreat to deal with love addiction. Although there are things that happen in this book that made me, as an outside observer, want to shout at the narrator that she’s making another mistake, You Exist Too Much is an interesting dive into the psychological healing process.

The unnamed narrator is the daughter of Palestinians who emigrated to the United States early in the narrator’s life. It’s clear that the narrator loves her mother, Laila, but they have a troubled relationship. Laila is a charming narcissist. She’s more likely to give you a slap or throw something at you as she is to kiss you. The narrator has always sought her mother’s approval, even though anyone else could have told her that this is impossible—especially once the narrator realizes that she is bisexual. The narrator hides so much about herself that it’s warped her psyche. The narrator knows she’s a messed up person but it’s only when she finds the number for The Ledge that she starts to hope that maybe she doesn’t always have to be the kind of girl who destroys her relationships.

We learn most of this backstory in between scenes at The Ledge, a self-help retreat where people with different kinds of addictions gather to meet with counselors and participate in group therapy. Just like addictions to alcohol and drugs, breaking an addiction to love and sex involves deep reflection and a desire to fundamentally change one’s behavior. I learned to appreciate the narrator’s struggle more as I read about her awful mother and her efforts to stop sabotaging her relationships. In the long denouement the follows the narrator’s time at The Ledge, we see her take her first steps in a relationship that might be just as destructive as before. We have to hope that things will be different this time.

You Exist Too Much would be a great read for people who like to take a deeper look into why some people always seem to ruin the good things in their life by chasing fantasies or who can never seem to be honest with the important people in their lives. This book shines a bright light on behaviors that we don’t normally see in fiction because they are un-glamorous and painful. It’s hard to watch someone make the same mistakes over and over again, even when its fiction.

I got an ARC of this book.

This book is interesting. I am not sure I have the words to explain how I feel about it. I read just enough to decide this book was a coming of age and coming out novel for a queer person. This is not quite wrong, but it is far form right.

The actual plot reads like a bad bi rep book written by a straight person who is afraid of bi people. The bi person is a constant and prolific cheater. She sleeps with pretty much everyone that offers and just think of all the bi stereotypes like unable to commit and you have the main character. The only part that I was interested in when it came to the sexuality of the character was the love addiction. That was fascinating. The way that that plot was told was something I enjoyed. If it didn’t come attached to terrible bi rep, then I would have liked this book a lot more.

The formatting of the book was weird. It was told between memories of childhood and the current time. The memories did not always seem related to what was happening and they were not always linear. There were times that the flashbacks were just so jarring that I was not sure what time I was in and what was really happening. Yet, I was captivated by this. I loved seeing these glimpses of the the past. It felt like these memories were what the character was working on and what was relevant for the trauma that she had experienced. There was a lot to unpack and a lot to see. As the MC progressed, there were less flashbacks. It was really cool in the end.

The ending was bullshit. Forgiving your abuser, because she also faced abuse does not magically fix a relationship or the trauma that either faced. It just felt like a cop out. I would have loved a more open ended ending. It would have fit better. Or the ending was a memory. That would have also worked. It just felt like there was too much that was magically fixed or a lot better than should have been.

I was annoyed that the MC had no name. Though it also made a lot of sense. It fit this idea that the MC was always losing herself in someone else and hadn’t really formed a full identity of her own from her mother, but it also felt like a writing ploy that I used in high school a lot when I was suffering from a lot of untreated mental health issues (spoiler, it was. I used it ALL the time). So if it is something I would have done, I would expect better from a published author. The author spent so much time in one section explaining about the mother’s name, yet the MC had none. It felt a little weird. It also kept all the partners at a distance since they couldn’t even say her name when they were speaking to her. The little details. So I am really on the fence with this idea.

Overall, the book held my attention, but I wouldn’t really think it was a good book. It wasn’t bad, but it was also one of those weird books that it seems like only I like. The terrible bi rep was awful. I don’t expect every bi character to be amazing, but when most of the bi rep is about a person being a stereotype it is too much. This book could have had a lesbian and had a more powerful plot. So this really does matter.

You Exist Too Much is a book about a Palestinian American woman who has a toxic relationship with her emotionally abusive mother. The fact that our protagonist is bisexual, further drives a wedge between them. From the blurb, I thought this book was more about merging her religious and sexual identities in a positive way to accept herself. In actuality, it's much more about the protagonist cheating on her partners, idolizing unattainable women, and sowing distrust with her manipulations. The main character was extremely unlikable because she recognizes these unhealthy patterns but continues to make these kinds of choices. Additionally, the story jumps around a lot in time and place; making it feel unorganized. However, the writing was beautiful and the main character felt like an actual person. I gave this book 3 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me an early copy. This book will be published on June 9, 2020.

Based on the description of this book I was expecting something much different, and I think that’s where my trouble began. The blurb read as a coming of age, culture clash novel in which the main character finds herself along the way. What I read felt more shallow and dramatic then I had expected.

The unnamed narrator, in what I read as an effort to make up for her treacherous relationship with her mother, is obsessed with attention and approval from women. We follow her series of romantic encounters, and subsequent disasters, as she searches for healthy love.

It’s hard for me to enjoy a novel with an unlikeable narrator, making this a difficult read. She was dramatic, rude, and constantly lied and cheated. There was also so much gratuitous sex. It felt never ending and left me so frustrated. I think the narrator slept with at least 2/3 of the characters in this novel, even the ones she hated. It was grating to read about such unhealthy relationships that never seemed to end.

I enjoyed the flashbacks to the Middle East and would’ve loved to spend more time learning about the cultural contrasts. Unfortunately, between the unlikeable characters and unnecessary amount of sex, this is not a book I particularly enjoyed.

American-Palestinian non-fiction writer Zaina Arafat details her love addiction and subsequent recovery or life in recovery via a scattered memoir of growing up Palestinian in America. From a young age Arafat's life was disrupted by her mother's abuse and her father's ability to ignore it all. As a bi-sexual adult she enrolls herself in a 28 day program in Kentucky to help with her love addiction.
I liked this book but I didn't love it. I wish Arafat had talked more about her Palestinian upbringing. She has a brother only 3 years younger than him but he mentioned only a handful of times. You don't know anything about him, which is odd. She also speaks about her mother but glosses over her father. It didn't have the rich cultural context that I had hoped for. I think if the description on the book had been better I would not have read this.

There is a lot going on in this book. The unnamed narrator is Palestinian-American and she spends her summers with family in Amman, Jordan and in Nablus, on the West Bank. Her parents are immigrants, her mother is unpredictable and possibly mentally ill. She's bisexual and struggles with various self-destructive behaviors. She's not good at relationships, but needs to be in one. As I said, it's a lot for a single novel and it seems to be part of a slow change in publishing where characters can be more than one thing outside of the routine, and are no longer expected to be representative of anything but their own complex selves. Like actual people, in other words.

The novels opens with an unsettling experience in Bethlehem, when the narrator is twelve. While walking around the old city, she is yelled at by a group of men for wearing shorts. The thing that throws her into turmoil isn't the men's reactions to her, but her mother's reactions. As the novel progresses, fear of her mother's reactions to her take up an out-sized part of the narrator's life, even when she's an adult, living and working in a different city. As the narrator watches herself sabotage her relationship with her girlfriend, she's forced to come to terms with the harmfulness of her behaviors, and how most of the harm done is to herself.

The narrator is not someone I'd enjoy knowing in real life, but I loved spending time with her in the pages of a book. I like characters who can't help but blow up their own lives and she was engaging, intelligent and always had something going on. The glimpses of life Palestinian life were fascinating.

Sometimes I read a book and I rush to write a review, other times I have to let the story sink in before I feel ready to write down my thoughts. You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat was one of the latter, and I have found myself thinking about it more after finishing than I did while reading. This book reads more like a memoir than a novel, content, style, and structure wise, and personally I became more invested once I decided to read it as a memoir rather than a novel.

The book follows the thoughts of one main, unnamed, protagonist: a Palestinian-American woman navigating her way through life. She has a fraught relationship with a mother who seems to be quite emotionally abusive. She also seems to have some difficulty accepting her bisexuality, although that seems to stem more from her mother’s disapproval rather than her own personal feelings. She has relationships with men and women, on whom she cheats, both physically and emotionally, and we follow her as she checks into rehab for sex addiction, and through the aftermath of that stay. The story jumps back and forth abruptly between the present, and snippets of the past: summers spent in Palestine with family, moments in past relationships, scenes with her mother… In a way the plot often reads like a stream of consciousness, a type of modern coming of age that discusses family, roots, love, and choices in a very open, and relatable way.

Zaina Arafat writes really beautifully, and the narrative flows well, even if the time hops are quite abrupt at times. I personally enjoyed watching the narrator’s self-awareness grow, and seeing how she dealt with it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't get into this book. It's probably me and my poor pandemic concentration. I'll try it again if/when I have a brain. I couldn't get into this book. It's probably me and my poor pandemic concentration. I'll try it again if/when I have a brain. I couldn't get into this book. It's probably me and my poor pandemic concentration. I'll try it again if/when I have a brain.

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review

What a sweet, special, book. Wonderful story about a young woman dealing with multi-generational mental illness, sexuality in flux, and having a foot in different cultures. Felt less like a novel than going out with a fascinating new friend for the first time and hearing her story. Easy five.

It’s always frustrating when a blurb promises one thing but the book does not follow thru. You Exist intrigued me because it was seemingly a story of culture clash, a young American of Palestinian descent who struggles between the expectations of her Arab heritage and her quest to come into her own, an out and proud bisexual woman.

Unfortunately, 80% of the book does nothing of the sort. The novel is told in first person present tense and reads like a journal that mostly details the mc’s college partying days and bed hopping as well as her time at a therapy camp. Much too long and tedious.

But at the very end, the narrative brightens and we get a taste of what might have been. The unnamed main character takes us along as she enters the West Bank to attend her grandmother’s funeral. It’s one of only a few brief but powerful moments throughout the book that reveal the heart of the story, a glimpse into the life of an American living between the Middle East and the USA and what it all might mean for a Palestinian woman who loves another woman. Also importantly, a volatile daughter/mother relationship exists that infuses much of the character’s behavior but again, there’s simply not enough development. Undoubtedly, all of these short passages are where the book shines and I sincerely hope that the author revisits the material and revises the focus because it’s too important a story to leave untold. That’s a book I would read willingly.

This was absolutely lovely. I couldn't put it down. The prose is so immersive- you just get sucked into the story and can't leave. The vignettes move slowly, but they layer on each other so beautifully to give you the sensation of when you wake up from a vivid dream and can't shake it for the rest of the day. The description of border checkpoints and the cruelty of Israeli occupation is so sharply rendered, and adds so much depth to the book as the narrator grapples with how the trauma her Palestinian mother has endured manifests in their relationship. I'm so glad this book exists.

Zaina Arafat’s debut novel You Exist Too Much reads more like a personal memoir recounted by (if I’m not mistaken) an unnamed first-person narrator whose namelessness suggests we already know her. This novel offers an unrepresented voice in literature in the story of a Palestinian-American queer woman who presumably struggles to accept her own dichotomous identities and carry on successful romantic relationships due to unresolved tension with her mother. The promise of a refreshingly new perspective, however, doesn’t quite come to fruition.

Arafat’s narrator describes her thoughts, feelings, and memories honestly, but more often than not they are just that: descriptions. The narrator is quick to tell us she cheated or that she returned to a cheating lover, but as a reader I didn’t understand her motivations for these actions—which is okay; she doesn’t understand her own motivations—but I couldn’t feel her pain, frustration, confusion, self-loathing. Overall, the narration lacked a visceral illustration of experience that could have set this novel apart from other stories of troubled relationships.

As if attempting to convey experience and memory as a stream of consciousness, the narrative jumps around from the present to a memory, sometimes from a memory to another memory, and then back to the present. These changes in scene and timeline are abrupt and although I’d like to think these vignettes imitate the narrator’s own thoughts and feelings, the choppiness of these cuts seems contrived. Moreover, each of the relationship storylines seem detached from one another. There’s no clear thread that unites them as one story other than the fact that this woman’s past traumas render her incapable of having successful relationships. I could accept this if that thread were more developed, if there were more focus on the mother-daughter relationship and how it came to be what it is; but as if it’s too difficult for the narrator to face head on, that part of the story remains rather vague.

Arafat’s novel tells an interesting story, and her protagonist is just sympathetic enough to make readers want to find out what happens to her. There are strong moments in this novel that show how relationships with one’s parents can have lasting, cyclical effects. Arafat tells a story from a perspective that is rare in our culture and media, and for that this novel seems worth reading. But from a literary perspective, this novel was missing the nuance that I had hoped to see in it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Catapult for giving me an ARC.

*I received a free ARC of this book from Catapult in exchange for an honest review*

Told through vignettes that mark significant moments in the protagonist’s life, this book weaves a story of the complexity of identity while exploring culture, addiction, family, and sexuality. The story jumps borders between the USA and the Middle East as the protagonist seeks to find herself through love and loss.

This was a competent debut with many very strong components. The protagonist was flawed enough to feel real without losing sympathy. The way the setting welcomes the reader into life in the Middle East as well as life as a Muslim-American is enacted beautifully and the strongest points of the story are the protagonist’s meditations on her visits back to Amman. The representation of bisexuality without overly dwelling on a boys-versus-girls storyline is refreshing. The writing is competent and has moments of illuminating clarity and nice prose. At other moments the writing feels rather immature and I hope those bits are further edited.

This book falters in a couple of ways that significantly affected my overall opinion. First of all, this seems to fall into the well that many debuts do of just trying to do too much. It brings up discussions of addiction, cultural ties, familial and child abuse, homophobia, eating disorders, and intercontinental and Middle Eastern conflict all within not very many pages. I think the breadth of topics really prevented the author from being able to fully explore any of them and rather left a partial but ultimately unsatisfying touching upon them all. The eating disorder and addiction talk mainly felt strange and not helpful to the plot overall. Which brings me to my second point of confusion with this story - The Ledge. I’m not sure I believe the premise that sent the protagonist to seek treatment there, nor did it seem like it shaped the story in any significant way. It seemed more than anything a device to divulge certain parts of the story, but undermined those elements of character study by setting up an expectation for change due to the very nature of an addiction program.

Overall, Arafat is clearly talented and knows how to tell a compelling story and while I had issues with this debut, I am excited to see what she writes in the future as she finds her way and her voice even more.

This was an extremely interesting book with an equally interesting premise. It was also very thought-provoking and would make for an excellent choice for a bookclub.

A 12-year old Palestinian-American girl is gay which is not something that is accepted at all in her culture. Finally coming out to her mother, her mother's only response is "You exist too much". What does that statement mean? Read on to find out the implications of being gay in a family and sometimes world that doesn't accept it.

The protagonist in this book, an unnamed narrator (something else that I found very interesting) has a clear and loud voice. Her struggles are almost adopted by the reader.

This is an excellent, diverse book choice for book discussion. Recommended.

Wow. I couldn't put this down! As a queer femme, I am always eager to read realistic representations of queer people navigating the world, and You Exist Too Much did not disappoint! The characters felt so very real,.. I kept thinking about them even after I'd stopped reading for the night. Truly incredible character building!

This book gave me all of the feelings. The operation of guilt and shame and the subconscious patterns in our lives and relationships is so elegantly crafted here, and so immensely relatable.

Truly one of the best books I've ever read. It gave me a bit of a book hangover...as I didn't want to start another book right away as I always do...I wasn't ready to leave the world of You Exist Too Much. I can't wait to read more from Zaina Arafat!

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

The protagonist in this novel is a young Palestinian-American bisexual woman. She lives in the shadow of her mother's outsized personality, and in desperate need of her love, as well as some definition to her own life.

Her road to self-discovery started with an eating disorder (treated), then a "love addiction", for which she checked into treatment, prior to her enrollment in a Midwestern MFA writing program.

The author's writing is heartfelt, her descriptions are well done, yet not overblown. I loved the flow of this story. There were times where the main character was a bit outsized herself- the number of her love affairs could have been mentioned, instead of a description of each, but, in general, this was a good read. This is an author to watch.

DNF 20%

I tried getting into this book quite a few times, but I sadly couldn't. The storyline jumps back and forth so many times, I honestly don't know what is happening in the present, and what is a memory from the past. 😔

Exquisite writing heart wrenching emotional decisions.?I was intrigued by this book by this young woman’s difficult decisions.A book you will sit quietly while you absorbs the path she takes the mistakes she makes.A book thT will stay with you Perfect for bookclub discussions.#netgalley#catapult

This book begins with a quote from my favorite book, which is a great way to start any new reading adventure, so I think one of the stars was earned by that fact alone. I don't know if it's that I'm coming off of reading several memoirs, but this book read like a memoir to me, so much so that I had to continually remind myself that it was not. Something about the sincerity of the narrator, the way she speaks of her relationships, just seemed genuine in a way fiction doesn't always. It was also nice to read something which deals with the mental and emotional health issues of people of color, which shouldn't be a revelation or relief, but is nonetheless. It was a refreshing, easy read which dealt with real issues, including eating disorders, codependency, addiction, recovery, immigration, queerness, and the general dissatisfaction and self-sabotage which can arise from any one of those realities. More than that though, it's about the possibilities of what comes after, without discounting what has come before.