The Death of Vivek Oji was one of my favorite books last year, so I was really excited to get an ARC of Akwaeke Emezi's next book but I gotta be honest, this didn't do it for me.
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Synopsis: Five years after the death of her husband, Feyi Adekola starts dating again, but finds herself drawn to one person that is definitely off-limits to her.
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Compared to Emezi's other books, this just felt so basic. It was a pretty typical story of a forbidden romance. There were some elements I enjoyed--surviving grief, and the gender and sexuality diversity--but overall the book overall felt pretty basic. It was also very dialogue-heavy, so it felt like the writing was more tell than show, and the second half ended up being pretty slow and repetitive.
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I read some reviews that said they appreciated that this was a new twist on an unconventional relationship. Maybe I would have felt the same way if I hadn't JUST read a book that had a very similar setup (I didn't like that one either).
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Personally, I'm not a big fan of romance, and I really dislike instalove as a trope, so ultimately this book was just not for me. If that's your thing, then you might enjoy this! It's just not my genre.

Truly a unique and interesting book. Akwaeke Emezi's writing is beautiful, and I found myself not being able to put it down. But, there were some issues with the book that made it far from the perfect novel.

The story follows Feyi, a 29-year-old woman whose husband died 5 years prior and who is just starting to get back into the dating world. When she meets Nasir, who is outwardly attracted to and interested in her, he invites her to spend some time working on her art at his family home in the Caribbean. This is where Feyi meets Alim's dad, a celebrity chef to who she grows more attracted.

This book was truly entertaining and interesting. The various sex scenes and intimacy between characters were sexy and steamy. The drama (being attracted to the dad of the guy you're dating) was... dramatic! It truly was scandalous!

I also loved the relationship between Feyi and her best friend, Joy. The descriptions of food was delicious, and the idea of summer vacation on a tropical island with a hot older man was definitely a vibe for me.

But when I think about the book deeper, I can definitely see a lot of issues. I wish we got to understand Feyi's late husband, Jonah, a bit more. We know that he was Feyi's best friend and love of her life, but when Feyi describes him she says they got married young and weren't even married a year before he died. Sometimes she has flashbacks to the car accident, but I would have loved to see flashbacks to their time together.

I also don't think the romance was all that believable. Like I said, the idea of crushing on your boyfriends hot dad is definitely my thing, but Feyi barely speaks to Alim for the entire trip, and all of a sudden, after one steamy moment, they are all over each other. Yes, they have both lost a loved one, but that's the only thing they talk about or have in common. And by the end of the trip they are so madly in love that they are willing to take this big risk? It just didn't seem believable.

Also, the book starts in New York City, but the story really kicks off when Feyi goes to the Caribbean on vacation, which isn't until about a third into the book. There was a really large disconnect between these two settings that it was almost jarring. Feyi also doesn't meet her main love interest until she gets on this island, and because the book is so short, everything happened really fast.

However, even though the romance wasn't believable, it was nice just to forget about how believable it was for a second and be sucked into the drama. It was good, but I can definitely see why people wouldn't recommend this Akwaeke Emezi book!

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free ebook of this title in exchange for my review.

Sadly, this was not the book for me. I dont' think I'm the target audience, and I just couldn't connect with any of the characters. After feeling like I had to force myself to read the first few chapters, I started skimming, hoping to engage with someone, and it didn't work for me.

I'm sure this is a great book for someone, but it's not me. This was my first book by this author, and I was hopeful when I saw so many glowing reviews. But it just didn't work out for me.

An urgent romance shot through with grief, art, and, surprisingly, food. Feyi, an artist and recent widow, is a character who will grab your heart and claw their way into mind. The story of their loss, their art, and their journey to something new will warm even the coldest, anti-romance reader out there. Truly, this book has the ability to reshape the romance genre and what it can do. Grab a copy as soon as you can!

This book was not for me. I went into expecting a literary fictional romance but was disappointed. Maybe it was my expectations that set the bar too high, but this book just seemed like a salacious romance novel.

I am all for unlikable main characters. Heck, I also do not get icked out by huge age gaps cos love is love, right? But somehow this book combined the two in a way that I just couldn’t get behind the storyline. Yes, this could be the perfect book for #sadgirlsummer, but it was not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

Did I pick this book for the plot, the cover, or the fact that it is a line from Florence +the Machine's Hunger? Yes, dear readers it's because of the third choice! This is my first experience with the writing of author Akwaeke Emezi and I must say they are a fantastic writer that held me in place as I read this passionate novel.

Now, main protagonist Feyi Adekola may not win every reader over but I like my characters messed up emotionally. Still reeling from the death of her beloved, Jonah, Feyi knows that it's time to make an attempt to move forward. But goodness, only for the physical, let's not start peeling back the layers of emotional trauma and bare thy soul. Thank goodness, Feyi, has a loyal and trustworthy friend named Joy to help navigate the drama that occurs over the course of the plot! Because our Feyi manages to make quite a few messed mistakes and things do get worse before they get better. However, I went along for the ride and eventually like the protagonist felt myself swept away by the overwhelming romance that begins.

Overall, it was a fairly quick read that made a memorable impression on me.



Expected publication 24/05/22
Goodreads review published 08/05/22

NetGalley Advanced Copy: After the Death of Vivek Oji, we knew that Emezi's newest would most likely be one of our top books of 2022.

What a stunning novel about finding love again – in yourself, friends, life, creations, and partner.

Characters are sure to live on in your heart long after you close this novel, and honestly, any book that follows will probably lack such vibrance, passion, and emotion.

Read our full review on The Uncorked Librarian here: https://www.theuncorkedlibrarian.com/upcoming-new-book-releases-2022/

Thank you to NetGalley & Atria Books for a free advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I received an ARC from the publisher and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Akwaeke Emezi is one of those authors I’ve always wanted to try, but found a lot of their work a bit too literary for my taste. So, I greeted the announcement that she was venturing into romance with measured excitement. It sounded cool (messy queer black girls, yes!) and while there are obvious concerns with someone from the “literary” space writing a romance, given the amount of snide comments people from that community have hurled at romance as a genre in the past, Emezi’s enthusiasm to distinguish this book from their prior work reassured me.
However, it is very much in the vein of the type of “romance” seen in the last few years, with heavy influence from the marketing crossover with women’s fiction. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I do think that, while Emezi is cautioning their literary readers about the genre change, they may catch a subset of seasoned readers of romance off guard who have expressed such sentiments in the past about the personal journey of the heroine being more prominent than the growth of two individuals as a couple. His issues are touched on, but more as a complement to hers.
Another issue is that, while some of the current reviews aren’t particularly fair to Emezi’s expression of Black queer identity (or their defense of it in the book), I can see that the blurb did no favors in cluing people into the “most definitely off-limits” guy that Feyi falls for. While I’m not a massive fan of age-gap relationships or storylines involving a woman leaving a man for his father, having been warned about it, I was mentally prepared to give it a chance, and found myself rewarded for it. And given the readership I know similar books in the indie romance space have that more publicly declare the type of pairing it is, I’d imagine it could be a selling point for them, while more casual readers new to romantic stories may not be as inclined toward something that borders on taboo.
With all those semantics about my issues with the marketing out of the way, I’ll say that I really enjoyed this. It’s a charming, hedonistic story, exploring wild youth and sexuality, tempered with an undercurrent of grief and its impact on a person. While not intentionally meant to be literary, there’s a depth to it that Emezi imbues that resonates, even underneath a glossy exterior of superficiality.
Feyi is a compelling character in that she is a young widow. The narrative follows her as she attempts to recapture joy (fittingly, accompanied by a friend named Joy) and get out and start dating again. She is soon swept up in a whirlwind of glamour and romance, seemingly thanks to this pretty cool guy she just started seeing.
It was pretty easy to sell me on the romance with Alim. While there is an age gap, on top of the wealth gap, and Feyi gets accused (by Alim’s own kids) of being a gold digger, I love the respect he treats Feyi with in the face of it all. And the fact that he also lost his wife means there’s a bond there that she doesn’t have with Nasir, or most men her own age. While some of the messiness on her end was a bit questionable, and Nasir’s initial response was somewhat understandable, given how awkward it must have been, I also felt he and his sister were a bit over the top in their behavior. But ultimately, the way it’s resolved and contributes to the happy ending is rewarding, as there is reckoning with what went down and making peace for the sake of the future.
I really enjoyed this book, and in spite of the issues that have cropped up prepub, I hope Emezi will continue to explore the romance genre. If you love stories about queer Black girls exploring their sexuality and navigating grief, and finding love unexpected places, you should give this book a chance.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

This was my first book by Emezi, and it definitely won't be my last. Their prose is beautiful, and I felt like I could step into the setting and story along with the characters.

This story follows Feyi, who is easing herself back into the dating scene after losing her husband at a young age. She meets what she thinks to be the perfect man, who brings her to visit his dad after helping Feyi secure a place at an exhibition on the island. Feyi realizes that the man she thought was perfect can't hold a candle to his father.

There were several points of the story where I felt uncomfortable with the actions Feyi, Nasir, and Alim all make, though I suppose that was the author's point. These are all deeply flawed characters, but there is a humanity to each of them that makes this story special. This is a story of grief and healing and learning to love again. I would classify this as a romance, but it is a literary fiction at its core.

It took me a while to read this, and I found myself needing to be in the right mood to read it.

3.5 stars

Love and life are messy endeavors. In You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, Akwaeke Emezi portrays the story of Feyi's journey to love again after the tragic death of her husband 5 years ago.

The book is a fairly quick read, with flashbacks that tell Feyi's backstory, and steamy sections mixed in to keep things fun. I found a few relationships in the novel difficult to witness, though probably a realistic portrayal of some self-destructive individuals. The forbidden, age-gap romance between Feyi and Alim was believable, though, since despite the age difference they had a lot in common. I thought the descriptions of Feyi's art were oddly beautiful, obviously a therapeutic aspect to her creations, and I found myself wanting to see the fictional exhibit. For foodies, the descriptions of Alim's cooking will make your stomach growl!

Overall, the book was quite enjoyable, a bit different from a typical romance novel, with deeper themes of grief and recovery. Thank you to Netgalley, Atria Books and Akwaeke Emezi for the opportunity to read an ARC of this novel. The opinions in this review are my own.

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty had the potential for me, but in the end, I don't think I am the target audience. While I can understand the actions that the lead character took and how she tried to heal herself, I just couldn't get behind them and I found her to be off-putting and unrelatable, to me. While the writing was good, I just did not enjoy the main character and the story.

“So was this what the world was made up of? Millions of boxes filed with people and feelings?”

I am not sure how I feel about this one. It was so beautifully written but the love story is messy. Perhaps because of the way Feyi and Alim came together makes me feel a bit weird.

I did like meeting Feyi as a character. Seeing her development throughout the story and also her reflections on how she’s grown since the death of her husband.

My favorite relationship in this book has to be the one between Feyi and Joy. I just loved their support of one another and how they tell each other hard truths.

This book also touches heavily on grief. I enjoyed how they wrote about the complexities of grief and being comfortable with another person and finding the way back to a new normal.

Overall a lovely, heartbreaking story.

[cw - death, drinking, drug use, scenes of domestic violence]

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is a romance novel following Feyi, a woman in her late 20s, who is being pushed into the back into the dating world a by her roommate and best friend, Joy, five years after the death of her husband in a tragic car accident. At a rooftop party, Feyi meets a man and quickly finds herself on an unnamed Caribbean island, with her sights set on the one person who is truly off-limits.

Emezi’s writing is beautiful, the way food is described in this book is truly to die for, and I found this book compulsively readable. This was also a really interesting and refreshing take on a romance book that completely deviates from the “rules” or typical formula used in the genre.

However, this was a conflicting book for me. I had a hard time reconciling this pretty taboo plot (I can’t really go into this further without spoilers), and I am left feeling like some of Feyi’s actions are inexcusable. I’m not entirely convinced by the justification of those actions offered in the book. Despite these qualms, I was convinced by and invested in the romance, which is rarely the case for me in romance books.

Ultimately, I cared about Feyi and the other characters in this book, and I think I will find myself thinking about them in the future.

**Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review**

Note: I will be reviewing this book on my channel in my May wrap up video, which will go public the first Sunday in June.

I knew Emezi’s writing from the other genres they’ve written in, so I should have known that they would write something that defied categorization. This novel is a brilliant commentary on grief and loss but also love, consent, and navigating relationships.

I’ve never read anything like this. There’s something so incredibly inviting about Feyi and her world. She may be closed off to her lovers but not to us as readers. I loved and recognized parts of her immediately. But of course, there is also so much I learned from her as the story progresses.

There’s more than romance, sex, and grieving, here, but I have a hard time describing exactly why and how Emezi works. I’m so glad to have read this.

<b>In this extremely dramatic, spicy, and PHENOMENAL novel, Akwaeke Emezi's debut romance is something to go down in history. </b>

Slightly copying a Florence + Machine lyric, Akwaeke Emezi presents us with their debut novel surprising us with this poetic and beautiful title "You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty." Along with other things that are beautiful about this, THE COVER. Atria really hit a score with this cover. Shout out to the designer (I tried looking online for their name. But if you are reading this, though you are probably not, I praise you).

Our main character, Feyi, has been out in the world living her life as an artist. Her former partner was brutally killed five years ago and it's time for Feyi to go back into the dating world. Her roommate Joy says she must go out and move on from the past. Feyi isn't ready for anything too serious, however new sexual encounters are something she IS ready for. This new sexual encounter leads to a new relationship that expands into the beautiful and dramatic story that is in this book.

This book is filled with drama, love, sex, partying, music, and everything in between. This book was great. I have not read any of the author's previous works but have been dying to read "The Death of Vivek Oji." However, I am very glad that I was able to read this first! This book was everything you want in romance—romance! And believe me when I tell you, it delivered, with so much more too. I'm not an avid romance reader, but I am an avid drama reader. This book had both, and that is a full packaged deal. Anything romance and drama probably has me hooked. This also had elements of literary fiction in it as well, which is I believe the genre of two of their other books.

Anyways, this book includes so much plot and romance and love and absolutely everything you are expecting from Akwaeke Emezi's writing. As I said, I haven't read their other works but have heard nothing but great things. This book is absolutely everything and more! I was a bit hesitant to read this only because I have heard such good things about Emezi's work and their writing, but I in no shape or form was disappointed!

THIS IS A MUST-READ FOR ROMANCE BOOKS IN 2022!!!

all in all: yes, just yes.


update: MY SINCEREST APOLOGIES FOR MISUSING THE AUTHORS PRONOUNS. I HAVE NOW FIXED MY REVIEW TO FIT THE AUTHORS THEY/THEM PRONOUNS.

Unfortunately, not the book for me. I don't really care for the actions that the protagonist took (and was praised for). I love the title though and I do think that this book will be for a lot of people, just not me.

4.5 stars

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is the first book I’ve read by this author and it is stunning. Their words were poetic and beautiful and I loved most of the book. I loved how much of a sex positive book this is! It is queer forward and most of the main characters are queer. I loved, loved the relationship between Feyi and Joy. Their friendship was beautiful in all the ways. I wished we had more Joy in the novel.

I liked Nasir and Feyi. I thought the chemistry was there. I liked how Nasir though about Feyi and recommended her art to a massive and meaningful art show. That art show was a pivotal point in the book.

I loved how they presented Feyi’s grief over losing her husband and how it’s a present and identifiable thing: through her art, especially. The art installation was so descriptive and moving, that I wished I could see it in person rather than imagine it.

I think that’s the main relationship in the whole book: Feyi and her grief. Emezi pushes that grief in your face and brandishes it like a weapon but also uses it to spin and move the story. It’s well done and now I plan to read more of their books. This is a literary romance and character driven book that is worth reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is a book about an emotional exploration of grief and taking a second chance on love. I'd say this is a romance that reads like literary fiction.

"Feyi wondered how they looked standing next to each other, deep blood and a long cloud. both adorned, both dark as two different nights"

There is a reason I don't read forbidden love stories. It just makes me uncomfortable. I am quick to empathize with the characters and feel for their agony over hurting their loved ones.

The synopsis is pretty vague so I am going to leave it spoiler free but Feyi and her "love"s predicament is really a tough one. Especially for him because he has a lot the lose. I think the reason they fell that hard and fast is because both experienced a great loss and they understood one another. They chose each other at the end because the other person makes them feel alive. I liked how Feyi put it: "I was alone next to your alone, like our alones could walk together....You feel like the first time in a long time I can even wonder about a possibility of not feeling alone"

Theirs was more than that carnal attraction. Yes, there was that but their actual relationship was less physical and more spiritual! That was a surprise because for a book that pretty much starts with sex scene, the rest of the book was, dare I say, tame!

I have to say the profanity bothered me a little bit. The Island setting and that gorgeous house were dreamy. I'd have liked to be a guest in that house and eat a Michelin star chef's food:)

The writing was very strong. No surprise there, because this is Akwaeke Emezi afterall.

And this cover! Isn't it just gorgeous?

Akwaeke Emezi does it again. Their writing is always so perfectly executed. They don't waste a single word. I'm always amazed at how short the work is but how fully realized each page is. This tale is about a woman who has felt absolute grief and is now ready to try and find herself again. She thinks she can never find what she lost, so must settle for something that is comfortable. Then, through the events of the story, she suddenly realizes she can never regain what she lost, but she can find something so wonderful in its own right. It isn't the easiest journey, it's messy in ways that others wouldn't understand, but it's fully human. I appreciate the most about Emezi, no matter what they right, you may not always like a character's actions, but you understand that it's the character and they will act how they need to for themselves. It is sometimes selfish, sometime selfless, and sometimes flabbergasting. But that is life.

I also couldn't believe how Emezi wrote about grief. It was so true. It showed the true feelings of someone who has done all the right work on themselves and will continue to need to do work. I adored how they spoke on it and how they incorporated mental health into this story. I also enjoyed how they dealt with age. So often people aren't seen for their actual age and how they will need to grow, and here they never shy away from that. Another amazing Emezi book, and can't recommend it enough.

I'm so sad. After loving previous works by the author, this one was one of my most anticipated reads this year. But I didn't like it.

Our main character, Feyi, is defined by three things and three things only: her trauma (which is indeed tragic), sex, and her beauty (which is mentioned every single time). My problem is that her characterization doesn't go any further than that. I can empathize with her pain but I can't connect to her as a character only through that especially when I don't get to know Jonah, who's only a prop to serve as her tragic background. She makes all of these decisions and she hurts a lot of people, thinking she's allowed because of her trauma. Since the other side of her is sex, and we follow the story mainly from her point of view, everyone is introduced as a potential (or not) sex partner; we never get to see their personality, we only read about their bodies until we get to the main love interest - we also hear about his trauma. Because that's another point, Feyi seems to think that she can only relate to people that have had the same experiences as her. So the main love interest is "allowed" to be considered because he also lost someone they loved (romantically loved). .

And the romance is so instalove-y. I couldn't believe how much a particular character was willing to sacrifice for someone they met 2 weeks ago. And we don't even see their relationship growing, we get maybe 2,3 scenes with them together before the relationship starts. I just couldn't buy the extreme love they had for each other after a couple of interactions. I think to force some of the intimacy that they are supposed to have, the author tried to show they had similar points of view. Feyi thinks about her feelings about certain things and the main love interest says the same thing a couple of pages later (with the exact same words). It felt like we were suppposed to think they belonged to each other because they shared some points of view. But that wasn't enough for me to buy their love - they needed more time and more meaningful scenes together. Also, the dynamics of that particular relationship just felt icky to me.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.