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You Exist Too Much

Zaina Arafat

4.36 · Rating details · 14 ratings · 8 reviews

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a ...more

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Hardcover, 272 pages

Expected publication: June 9th 2020 by Catapult

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· 14 ratings · 8 reviews

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Oct 25, 2019 Catapult rated it it was amazing

Shelves: our-books, spring-2020, 2020

For fans of Garth Greenwell and Weike Wang, You Exist Too Much is a startling debut novel of desire and doubleness following the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities.

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Jan 05, 2020 Bandit rated it liked it

This sounded really intriguing. Plus it checked so many of the boxes. For one thing, great for international reading, first experience with a Palestinian author, the book is set mostly in US (where the author is now based) with prolonged visits to the Middle East. Plus the protagonist is queer, bisexual to be specific, which creates for all sorts of cultural stereotype clashes. So anyway, there were certain expectations going in and at fist the book absolutely delivered. And then, as it went on, This sounded really intriguing. Plus it checked so many of the boxes. For one thing, great for international reading, first experience with a Palestinian author, the book is set mostly in US (where the author is now based) with prolonged visits to the Middle East. Plus the protagonist is queer, bisexual to be specific, which creates for all sorts of cultural stereotype clashes. So anyway, there were certain expectations going in and at fist the book absolutely delivered. And then, as it went on, it got ever so slightly tiresome and I blame it on the main character. Of course, she can’t help it, she’s written that way, but the first person narrative is so immersive that the book seems to be deliberately structured to bypass the author and so…you have the protagonist’s story from early age to about 30 told very much in jumping around confessionals and vignettes. Messed up from the early age by the distant withholding father and an aggressively emotional mother, we meet her in her mid 20s as promiscuous DJing Brooklynite doing all she can to sabotage her live in relationship. Finally the person leaves her, which brings on some contemplation, which results in seeking treatment for love addiction. Yes, love addiction, first world all the way, unusual for a first generation immigrants, but this one is thoroughly Americanized. And so the novel takes you through rehab and post rehab affairs until the protagonist finally settles within herself enough. So essentially the challenging crippling mother/daughter relationship leads to looking for love in all the wrong places. Reductive…yes. Ok, but that’s how it is, though. There’s this obsessive need for a connection, followed by the inability to take care of it. And having just watched the second season of you, one can’t help but notice the parallels. Both characters are craving a perfect connection to make up for early childhood disappointments, both pursue ideals, both stumble when reality comes through the perfect ideal, but essentially both are looking for love. The main difference is that one (the strangely compelling one) is willing to kill for it, the other one is just playing the field, both fields in fact, like a greedy bisexual that she is. And ok, sure, this will sound terribly judgmental, but her sexuality is a mystery to me, the whatever whenever thing just to tune out the noise, the suddenness of her choices is too much. The romance with the Argentinian being the especially unbelievable one, conducted against all sound judgement almost immediately after rehab. Basically, the character takes almost inexplicable dramatic romantic leaps that are, sadly, in a way her main defining characteristic. That and the mommy thing. Both are to an extent cultural, certainly, and as such are very interesting to something not familiar with the culture, but after a while you’re just stuck with the character who is very limited. Despite the seemingly unlimited choices for connection, she’s mainly defined by toxic maternal love and its various codependences and a penchant for promiscuity. It’s so one note, you kind of want more for her. And in the end, there are barely any lessons learned. Yes, she is in a yet another relationship and yes this one shows promise of genuineness, but it seems like the protagonist hasn’t really changed that much and might revert back tom her old self at any moment. Now thinking about it, it’s probably reflects well on the book for me to have such personal opinions about its main character, shows a certain level of engagement at the very least, but it also shows a certain level of frustration. Maybe just too much time spent with someone I’m not sure I really liked or understood. Oh well, at least it’s been real as the kids say. Interesting too. The writing itself was very good, especially for a debut. Glad I read this, frustrations aside. Thanks Netgalley. ...more

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Feb 14, 2020 Karen added it

You Exist Too Much really makes you really think about life, love, addiction, sex, identity, and culture. I often found myself shaking my head or with wide eyes as I followed the MC as she navigated her life. She (the protagonist) really has been defined by her childhood growing up between the US and Palestine. She has struggled to gain the attention of her mother and other family members along with dealing with her abusive mother. As an adult, she navigates her life by being addicted to love or ...more

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Jan 12, 2020 Shruthi rated it really liked it

Shelves: arcs, realistic-fiction

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my review.

A full review to come on the blog closer to the release date!

You Exist Too Much seemed like a book that was pretty much made for me. The premise was so interesting but the actual story was a bit of a let down. It wasn’t a bad book, I just had high expectations.

The protagonist was so unlikable. She was so self-destructive and hurt everyone good in her life. This was to probably ...more

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Feb 08, 2020 Susie Dumond rated it it was amazing

Our unnamed Palestinian-American narrator, after years of being told by her mother that she "exists too much" in her feelings and desires, checks herself into a treatment center for love addiction. During her journey of self-discovery, we see her in all of her imperfect glory: wanting to be loved, desiring the wrong people, following passions down dangerous roads, and struggling to unpack her fraught relationship with her mother. Arafat's writing is visceral and honest, and although the ...more

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Feb 15, 2020 Daniel Hooker rated it liked it

Shelves: diverse-book-club

Through the book I couldn’t help fighting between being very compelled and also wanting something more to the point. It kept me reading and the different facets of the story (bisexuality, parental issues, conservative culture, love addiction, therapy, eating disorders, infidelity... to name a few??) have the recipe for something unique but I ended up thinking it never truly came together.

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