I am, once again, blown away by Akwaeke Emezi. This book is absolutely distinct from their other works, but Emezi is faithful to their commitment to subvert expectations and make readers sit in discomfort... all with the most vibrant and sensual language. Seriously, Emezi's seductive writing style is absolutely perfect for romance and You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is a masterpiece because of it.

It's hard to briefly describe what about this novel is brilliant, but it comes down to the more literary approach to romance, along with Emezi's commitment to pushing the boundaries at every turn. Not only is this a twist on the "forbidden love" trope, encouraging readers to root for an unconventional relationship, Emezi also seamlessly integrates queer love, recovery from grief and trauma, Black joy, and feminine sexuality and power. In addition, Emezi excels at introducing complicated characters, and Feyi, Nasir, and Alim are no different.

That said, I didn't love ~every~ minute of it, this novel falls victim a few tropes in romance that can get under my skin... including insta-love and codependence that is hard for me to visualize. However, unlike most contemporary romance, where the reader is encouraged to picture their selves as the protagonist, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is ultimately Feyi's story. While I may not agree with her choices, I am comfortable allowing her to be human.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: none
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

Before I get into this, can we just touch upon the whole being allowed to use a Florence + The Machine lyric as the title of your book thing? Hashtag author goals.

Also I understand, like, localisation is a thing and, ironically, I know less about the British market than the US market but, like, why do Americans get this gorgeous vivid cover with a person’s actual face on it? And we get something that looks like the fucking relic ring from Skyrim.

Like, did they think we wouldn’t buy a book with a picture of beautiful Black woman on the front? So she had to be represented by a severed hand instead? What even? Is this reflecting badly on the UK reading audience or the UK publisher? I can’t even tell.

Anyway, this book is gorgeous, and I am dizzy on how much I loved it. I understand it’s the author’s first foray into romance and, obviously, when mainstream publications speak of romance it’s hard to figure out whether they mean, a book that happens to have a relationship in it, never mind whatever else it’s about, a book that wants to tell the romance genre (from a position of ignorance) all the ways it’s wrong or unrealistic or fomulaeic, or a book that is a sincere engagement with the romance genre while bringing a slightly different perspective. For my money, and your mileage may vary, You Made A fool of Death With Your Beauty is the latter.

It's a deliberately literary take on the genre, of course, but—to mind—it also treats genre expectations respectfully and with awareness. Which is to say, this while, in genre-terms, this is definitely a heroine-focused romance (it is thoroughly Feyi’s journey), there’s a strong central romance, and a happy ending, that is either 'for now' or 'for ever' depending on your personal perspective. Not everything is wrapped up in a neat little bow—these are complicated people and the situation is complicated—but I’m not of the school of thought that believes a romantic happy ending requires not just personal happiness but complete social integration of that happiness. As I’ve said on my occasions, that’s always struck me as a profoundly normative and privileged point of view. Of course it’s fine to create a mini utopia if that’s what feels right for an individual text. But the idea that’s a requirement? Or the happy ending isn’t happy enough? Please.

I’m aware I’m kind of talking around this book a fair bit here and it’s not just that I love the sound of my own voice (my own voice typing). I’m kind of anticipating—fairly or unfairly—that this book might be polarising for some people, and that there’s always an understandable resistance towards someone coming into the genre from outside or being placed adjacent to the genre by the outside, so I’m concerned that my praise could come across as diminishing of the genre itself. But I do genuinely believe the way this book—with the way it centralises Blackness and queerness, with the freedom it permits its heroine to live her life as she needs to and never punishes her for it, with all its beauty and its pain—carefully challenges some of the invisible boundaries we set upon the genre from the inside is … honestly, I think it’s important. And, while it is not up to me to make this judgement, I read it as coming from a brave and loving and generous place.

Please don’t think I’m trying to claim this lit-ficcy romance is the magic answer to the genre, or the thing the genre has always needed, or, like, a fix for the way the genre can be problematic and limiting. The genre will someday have to figure that shit out for itself. But in the meantime, this book is *lovely*. It’s as bold and entrancing and complex as its heroine. And I hope it will be welcomed.

The basic deal here is that the heroine, Feyi, is an artist whose husband died five years ago in a terrible car crash. Needing to live a completely different life in the aftermath of such terrible grief, she’s moved from the claustrophobia of her small town to New York to pursue her career and bond with her best friend, Joy—a self-destructive lesbian with a penchant for married women. Feyi has not exactly felt like dating since her husband died but while she’s out at a party she has a brief, physical encounter with a stranger called Milan. She and Milan continue to have a few mutually beneficial respectful but emotion-free hook-ups until one of Milan’s friends, Nasir, towards whom Feyi experiences something of a pull, approaches her. She’s still not ready for anything resembling a relationship but Nasir, who makes it very clear he is into Feyi, is willing to take things slow. To be friend with the hope of more in the future.

It’s at this point that Nasir brings an opportunity to Feyi. His father is on the board of directors for a museum about to open an exhibition of Black Diaspora artists and one of the artists has pulled out. Nasir had encouraged his father to put Feyi’s work before the curator and the curator had loved it. Nasir’s father, it turns out, is a big deal, being rich, influential and a celebrity chef (albeit a somewhat reclusive one). You can probably see where this might be going: Nasir invites Feyi to stay with him and his father in his father’s gorgeous tropical-island home while she prepares her installation for the art show. And from the moment Feyi meets the widowed, charismatic Alim Blake she’s conscious of her an emotional and physical attraction that feels realer than anything she’s experienced since Jonah died. An attraction she also knows she should in no way act upon.

Okay so. That’s a lot. I’m aware that it’s a lot. And I suspect if you told me the premise of this book in isolation, I’d be like “heh, no thank you.” I think the combination of the age-gap (there’s nineteen years between them), the fact Feyi is not-quite-dating Alim’s actual son, plus the inherent power dynamics in the relationship, given she’s a young woman trying to make it as an artist, and he’s a man who has already established himself in the world to the point of owning one of the most amazing houses I think I have ever read about fiction. But, you know what? Fuck it. This really worked for me, on pretty much every level.

Sometimes when I have to describe romance to romance sceptics which, admittedly, doesn’t come up very often because I don’t leave the house or have any friends but when I do, I often call it a genre of polemic. Because essentially a romance novel is … an argument, I mean in the classical rhetorical sense, not in the sense of a fight. A romance novel essentially presents an argument—makes a case—as to why two (or more) people would have their lives significantly improved by sharing them. And if you come out of the book agreeing then that’s a successful romance. If you come out of the book feeling meh or, worse, then it’s not. And obviously this is hugely subjective: what you read as protective alpha caring for his partner I might read as an abusive dick upholding the patriarchy, what I might read as two flawed human beings fitting their broken pieces together, you might read as two dumpster fires who need therapy not a relationship.

For me, You Made A fool of Death With Your Beauty makes its case beautifully and sufficiently convincingly that Feyi and Alim working through the various (very real) obstacles to their being together in order to be together felt genuinely romantic. Even triumphant. Because, what can I say? Sometimes you’re just going to fall for your boyfriend’s dad, y’know? I mean, I’ve just expressed that in a deliberately frivolous fashion but it’s something the book takes a lot of care with. For starters, Feyi and Nasir aren’t actually dating at the point she meets Alim—and she is already beginning to recognise she doesn’t feel about Nasir the way he feels about her—and the complications (I hesitate to say ‘taboo’ because it’s not really a taboo, just … socially discouraged) inherent to a relationship between Feyi and Alim are never presented as titillating. This isn’t a guilty fantasy of falling for a person you shouldn’t want. It’s a story of two people who truly belong together choosing each other because their love means more to them than convention and potential condemnation.

It's this—as much as Feyi and Alim both being bisexual—that You Made A fool of Death With Your Beauty so successful as a queer m/f romance. It’s a book that understands, on a fundamental level, that choosing love is sometimes one of the boldest, most defiant things you can do.

Even putting aside the potentially challenging nature of its central relationship, I think it’s pretty clear from the summary alone that there are several ways in which the narrative pushes against some of the invisible boundaries of romance that I mentioned earlier. And I don’t mean in terms of the HEA or anything like, I mean in terms of the unspoken no-nos governing characters and relationships that we pretend aren't dictated by the most heteronormative of expectations. For example, I can’t actually remember the last time I read a romance (outside of erotic romance) where the heroine is allowed to explore romantic-adjacent relationships with multiple men and this is presented as neutral-to-positive by the text itself. Feyi’s relationship with Nasir is, of course, difficult because he is accepting friendship as a substitute for what he really wants (although, let’s very clear, this is his choice, and Feyi is not responsible for him) but I really appreciated her interactions with Milan—the man she fucks in a bathroom in the opening chapter.

It’s undeniable, of course, that Feyi is behaving recklessly (she convinces him, for example, not to wear a condom) —and a little selfishly in the sense that she is having sex with Milan not for pleasure, exactly, but to reclaim her body from grief. But there’s never a moment when Feyi’s agency in the situation or her consent isn’t absolutely central and absolutely respected, both by Milan and by the text itself. There are no consequences for Feyi for her choices here, be they emotional, physical or social. And while both characters are mildly irresponsible, there is never a sense of danger for Feyi in what she is doing. The text takes it for granted that Milan—a cis man—will have sex with a woman he’s just met in a bathroom and not in any way view that as invitation to behave badly or judge her: this may, unfortunately, feel too much like romantic fantasy for some but I personally (and with no standing to judge) appreciated it. It felt like a deliberate attempt to push back against the dominant cultural narrative that casual sex is inherently or inevitably dangerous to women. And while that may, in fact, be true, it’s not a natural dynamic that we should replicate unthinkingly in the stories we tell. It’s an aberrant situation created by rape culture and the patriarchy. When the reality is and should be: women can have casual sex, even reckless selfish casual sex, without being punished for it.

Err, to bring this slightly closer to my lane because, obviously, I’m way out of it right now: I know depicting safe, responsible sex is sort of seen as ethically appropriate in fiction and I’m not knocking that, but I think it’s easy to inadvertently cross the line into reinforcing oppressive ideas about sex, and sex among people of marginalised identity in particular. I could talk about this more with reference to my own identity but I’d rather talk about this book.

Because, oh God, I’ve written so much without even touching on even half the things that are amazing about it. There’s Feyi, who I simply adored: she’s obviously still trying to figure out how to survive her loss, but she’s also just incredibly funny and full of life, allowed by the text to be confident, about her art, about her own beauty, as well as human and uncertain. She doesn’t always make the best choices but why should she? She’s a person, not a paragon. There’s also Feyi’s relationship with Joy: honestly, if the whole story had been them bantering and taking the piss (very lovingly) out of each other, I wouldn’t have minded. And then there’s the way the book both celebrates love (all kinds of love, not just the romantic relationships at it centre) and deals with the grief, particularly with how we live with grief and the way it changes us. But also the way that grief and love, at some point, are simply expressions of each other. Perhaps even reflections of each other. One of the things that moved me very much was the way, as the story unfolded itself, it presented a concept of grief not as something isolating, or something that separates you and your pain from the rest of the world, but as something universal and potentially uniting. There are many human experiences, after all, which are specific: but at some point we will all lose someone we love and have to live with that loss.

As for the relationship between Alim and Feyi, I’ve seen it described as insta-love which … doesn’t quite, for me, fit the bill. I think there’s insta-attraction, because they’re both incredibly hot, and insta-understanding, because they’re both people who have had their lives changed and shaped by intense personal loss. I think it’s this, at least initially, that draws them to each other—simply because it’s a significant part of who they are that’s impossible to share with someone who hasn’t experienced something similar (ask me how I know—no seriously, don’t, it’s personal). While there is a sense of connection between them from the beginning, and Feyi is, of course, hyper-aware of her attraction (alongside how inappropriate it is) the recognition that what they might feel for each other is love develops more slowly. They share conversation, understanding, jokes and most significantly their art (there’s a wonderful parallelism in Feyi’s response to Alim’s cooking and Alim’s response to Feyi’s installation: in their separate ways they communicate something that has profound meaning to the other person and alleviates a deep sense of loneliness they've both been carrying). Also do not get me started on Alim as a romantic hero: the man is beyond exquisite, with his cooking, and his beautiful house, and his juxtaposition of gentleness and strength. And, most importantly, the way he never wavers when it comes to Feyi.

Obviously the end of the book is quite intense as the truth of Alim and Feyi’s relationship comes out, and some of the scenes with Alim’s family are genuinely hard to read. As I said in the early part of this monster essay, I appreciated not everything was magically fixed by the book’s conclusion, but I also appreciated the way that the social context never became a point of conflict for Alim and Feyi. I was worried they would doubt each other or doubt themselves—and I wasn’t emotionally ready for that because the book had already taken me on such a vulnerable-making journey. But thankfully we didn’t go there and Feyi got an opportunity to defend her choices, even though she shouldn’t have had to defend them. As she tells Nasir:

“You have no ‘right’ to me, we weren’t together, we weren’t even exclusive. You’re not entitled to fuck me just because you were a decent human being and went along when I wasn’t ready to be intimate with you, or be mad because I ended up fucking someone else. You don’t get points for waiting for me. I didn’t use you, I didn’t lead you on. I went as far as I felt comfortable, and I stopped there.”

Given how much scrutiny heroines, and indeed female characters in general, tend to receive in the genre (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had editorial feedback along the lines that my women aren’t nice enough or thinking about the men in their lives enough--and maybe that's a problem with me and the way I write people orrrrrr....) I relished Feyi’s narrative freedom: she is allowed to who she is, to navigate her pain in the way she chooses to navigate it, to be selfish when it is healthy and righteous for her to be selfish, and to do what she needs to do to secure her own happiness, and always without compromise or contrition. Even her desire, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, she owns:

Feyi pushed away the irrational feelings of rejection (He doesn’t have to want you, she scolded herself) and focused on what did belong to her— this desire. This desire that pooled like traitorous flame, that wasn’t in response to someone else, that was coming from her and just her. She belonged to it, and it belonged to her, and that’s as far as it needed to go.

Honestly, the only thing I was missing really, by the time the book wrapped up, was a touch more Joy (as in Joy the person, there was plenty of loving joy): there’s a hint or two that suggests her current relationship isn’t a disaster but, well, as much as I am against “resolve everything endings” I did need to know Joy was okay. Because Joy is the best.

Okay, I need to wrap this up because I could talk for hours, days, forever about this book. And, uh, it feels like I literally have? Also it just goes to show much there is to admire and think about that I’ve barely mentioned how perfect the writing is, whether it’s theback and forth between Joy and Feyi, or the tentative unfurlings of trust between Alim and Feyi, its incisive explorations of Feyi’s emotions and desires, or the lavish food and architecture porn that had me absolutely swooning.

I simply cannot recommend You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty highly enough: I’m sure there are people it's not going to work for but, for me, it’s one of the boldest, most powerful and … honestly … unabashedly romantic romances I’ve read since the last terrific romance I read.

Oh boy. I’m not exactly sure how to unpack all of this… I read The Death of Vivek Oji when it first came out and I LOVED IT! I know there were some parts of it that were not for everyone (cousin love) but I felt like there was so much depth and emotions it really meant something to me. I was so excited when I saw they were publishing multiple books this year. I started their memoir, but stopped when I got an ARC for their newest novel. I understood this was a different genre (romance vs contemporary fiction) and went in blind. The prose started so good. The characters, the layers of the story, the pain in the grief. Then things started to get a little weird when Feyi and Nasir went to the island. SPOILERS AHEAD. I thought it was odd that the second Feyi saw Alim, aka Nasir’s father, she was immediately obsessed with him. I guess we are supposed to believe that the two widow’s share a red string and right way they could feel it? I started to get annoyed with Nasir because I felt like he was always saying the right thing and was such a “good guy” but really never got to know her or tried to understand her boundaries. When things switch between Feyi and Alim, I felt like the writing got a little cheesy. It was just so over the top and hard for me to believe how they were acting and talking. I found Alim so annoying after a while..like he’s just sooo handsome and such a good cook and always says the most incredible thing, and those hands! Then Nasir coming in so angrily, but after a few days he’s like “awwh you’re in love!” The ending was way to over the top cheesy. The “I love yous” and “we should get married” was just a little too much for me…

This was just not for me. Not a huge fan of smut/romance and did not connect with or like the main character.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59232998

Amazing. I loved it. Let Black thems be problematic. What a romp. I want 100 more romance novels from Emezi. Devoted it in one night & don’t regret the sleep debt.

I have loved everything Akwaeke Emezi has ever written, and genuinely consider them to be one of my all-time favorite authors. I was incredibly excited for this book, so much so that I nearly fell out of my own bed when I saw that I was approved an E-Arc through NetGalley. This book, I'm so happy to say, did NOT disappoint. Like with all of Emezi's work, their writing is so precise and gorgeous, and I highlighted so so many lines in this book that I cannot wait to go back and reflect on them all. Even with the incredibly vivid writing and the settings that reflected right off of the page, the characters were (as usual) what made this story for me. JOY! I am obsessed with her, would have LOVED to see more of her in this, and would actually die if I got to read a story narrated from her perspective. She was so full of light and love and the banter she had with Feyi? I actually died laughing at most of her lines. And FEYI! Girl was messy as hell, but she knew her worth, and she knew herself and reading from her perspective was one of the most incredible gifts, I would absolutely want to be her friend in real life. And the love interests, they were so well rounded as well! Overall, I could not have asked for more with this book and am so happy it managed to deliver on literally every part of my expectations, plus more.

I wonder if Akwaeke Emezi has set themselves a mission to write a book in every genre possible. They've done a YA book and a middle grade one, I believe, a mystery, a memoir, a magical realism novel that we read in my science fiction book club. They are good at what they do in any genre so far IMO.

This is their romance novel. It opens with a hookup in a bathroom as Feyi, the main character, dares herself to get back into the action five years after the death of her husband.

It feels to me like this book is also a response to "How Stella Got her Groove Back", because Feyi is seeking basically the same thing. She's trying to emerge from her grief, elevate her work as an artist, and try out romantic relationships to see if she can do them yet. One thing I like about Feyi is that she listens to herself. If she decides that she needs to go slow, she'll do that. If she just wants a good lay, she'll see about that too. Feyi is almost too good to be true, but I guess a lot of romance heroines are.

This is a very sensual book. Colors almost explode off the page. Delectable food abounds. I'm a visual person and I enjoyed reading about how Feyi chose to color her braids, how amazing her clothes looked on her. Romance is a lot about living vicariously through your main character and the author clearly understands this and gives the reader a wonderful escape. Everyone is wealthy and/or talented. We visit the hip new restaurants of NYC and also escape to a dreamlike tropical island. Feyi herself notes how the island setting feels like a dream. There is lush greenery, butterflies and rainbows, an architecture porn masterpiece of a house in which she stays. This does Stella one better, because while Stella stayed at a resort with some of the class consciousness and conflict that comes with tourism, Feyi has an in with people who live on the island. This circumvents the awkward stuff about a wealthy American woman who is attracted to a lovely islander who works for her.

And of course there's a love triangle and misunderstandings. The author wisely does not let the suspense build for too horribly long. I think some people are going to have an issue with how the romance of this book works. For myself, I think that the author tried hard to show an irresistible attraction. The characters also discuss their choices and try to be responsible to others as much as they can while still following their hearts. For me, I was fine with escapism for this book and rolled with it.

So the author definitely understands the forms and how to use them. I wonder how they feel about the tropes that they are employing? When I think too hard about that, it feels almost manipulative. But maybe it's also that the author has been hitting a lot of heavy topics and wanted to write about joy for a change. I'm interested in whatever they decide to do next.

You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

"𝑯𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒌𝒆. 𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒔𝒌𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝒔𝒐𝒊𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒊𝒓."

I was excited to be invited to view this galley because I read Freshwater by this author and loved her unique writing style. Plus, can we admire the cover?? Beautiful!

This is Emezi's debut romance and I think it was well done. She has such a descriptive writing style so I don't think it will be for everyone, however, I enjoyed it.

Our MC, Feyi is severely broken. Five years ago she lost her husband in an accident that every so often haunts her in her dreams. She hasn't loved since then and soon finds she is tested in several different ways. This story is all about boundaries being stretched, shattered, and broken. Above all, she gets a second chance at rediscovery and healing.

The supporting characters had me laughing, the food described in this novel had me drooling! Sexuality is a huge part of this story. Again, keep in mind that this specific writing style makes the sexy scenes jump out from the pages. There are bisexual characters, there are straight characters, it's also an age-gap romance. It is messy, complicated, and unconventional. It was different, but I know that I will get different from this author.

Some of the negatives: I thought a small portion of the dialogue was repetitive in areas and there was a pet name that I could have done without (or less of) "sweetness" but I binged this novel and enjoyed it. If you're up for pushing your reading boundaries, consider this one! It's also under 300 pages.

Thank you @netgalley and @atriabooks for this eARC.

This novel is expected to publish on May 24, 2022.

Beautifully written aA heart wrenching book of loss the death of the one you love.Moving on trying to heal and love again.I read this in two sittings could not stop thinking about it a very talented author and emotional read.#netgalley #atria

This book had me hooked from the beginning, and I just couldn’t put it down. Not only it was brilliantly written but also the characters were so fun, entertaining and quite relatable.
A definite page-turner! You'll be left thinking about the story long after you put the book down.
First book to read by this author but definitely not my last!
Akwaeke Emezi, did a miraculous job with the storyline and writing.
YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY will be one fiction novel that will have readers picking this book up and not wanting to put to down.

Atria,
Thank you for this eARC!

Rating: 2.5

I liked the main character's friend and Akwaeke Emezi's writing and I like the other books I've read by them, but this book just wasn't for me.

I have loved all the books I've read by Akwaeke Emezi and they have all been quite different from each other. When I saw that this was a romance, I was interested to see how that type of book would fit with the author's writing style.

As a short synopsis, this book is about Feyi, a young widow who is starting to date again five years after her husband's death. Feyi is bisexual; all of her main relationships in this story are with men. At the beginning of the book, she meets a guy and they have a connection, but she quickly realizes that she is more attracted to someone else and the story unfolds from there. It's important to note that grief and loss are themes present throughout the story.

As expected, I found the writing and pacing of this book really strong. I read this one quickly and it kept me interested throughout. However, this book was challenging for me because the relationship at the center of the story was hard to support and it was frustrating to watch the characters’ decisions. In my opinion, this is not necessarily a romance where you want the characters to get together, but I imagine people will disagree about that point, and in that way I think this is a really good book because it forces you to think critically about whether or not you agree with the characters.

This book evokes strong emotions and is definitely difficult to read at times, but I think that people who have an interest in romance books that discuss grief, books with main characters who make some bad decisions, or the author's other works will be fans of this one.

Thank you to Atria Books for this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I'm posting this review on Goodreads now and will update it on publication day along with an Instagram post dedicated to the book.

This one did not work for me. After one chapter I could not connect with the writing style at all. Might work for someone who is familiar with the author. It however was not for me.

It's not often that a book can make me internally scream through the entire thing in a GOOD way, but I was living for the drama. Like, I almost threw this book across the room several times because it made me MAD and then I had to keep on reading. Mostly, the prioirities of the characters are SO out of line, it was such a romp. I liked the unbelievability of the plot, which was balanced by the unlikeability of the characters (which is believable lol). The drama was soapy and there was minimal sex, which somehow HEIGHTENED the sexual tension. I was constantly surprised, GASPING, at the actions and choices of the characters, yet it all felt plausible. I was super entertained throughout. Feyi has some nerve to smash through relationships, leave a bunch of collateral, and never want to give the men what they want. I am on her team even if I would never be her friend IRL. I also thought the art piece concepts Emezi created for their character were brilliant, and I loved the small reference to their sister (who is a real life artist) in it!

This was such a beautiful, and occasionally heart-wrenching read about loss, and learning to live again. It went to so many different places that I wasn't expecting, and though not all of the characters were always likeable throughout, they always felt real, and I always felt for them. I especially loved the main character's friendships with Joy, and Milan.

Emezi’s debut Freshwater—the coming-of-age story of a child filled with evil spirits—racked up awards and honors left and right, including being longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. I was surprised that the author was trying their hand at romance in the forthcoming You Made A Fool of Death with Your Beauty and was, unsurprisingly, blown away by the results. I hate when a writer is described as “elevating” the genre, because that implies a deficiency in traditional romance novels. Instead, I’ll say that Emezi writes the heck out of protagonist Feyi’s journey through widowhood and back into love. The novel holds difficult emotions and descriptions of strangers having sex as equally important, and delivered one of the most memorable novels I’ve ever read.

I included this title in my round-up of winter and spring 2022 books for Book & Film Globe: https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/seven-novels-to-read-in-2022/

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book is incredible. On one level, it's basic fiction, just a pretty straightforward narrative--which i love so much, so am not trying to be dismissive by saying that. But then added to that is Akwaeke Emezi's brilliance with dialogue and language, and a refusal to accept simplification and flattening of anything. I couldn't get into freshwater, and i liked the death of vivek oji but didn't love it, and i KNOW that both of those are probably because i like an easier, clearer storyline. This one was exactly what i dreamed of--but could never have dreamed of in such a perfect way. I really want to go back and listen to the audiobook of this once it's out.

It starts off slow and kind of dense, but once the action begins, it's hard to resist the story as it drives forward. It reads as a true epic, one that makes you feel the world really has been reshaped as you read it. Would recommend.

The first line in Akwaeke Emezi’s YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY is attention grabbing and the feels you get from this book won’t let you go. Feyi Adekola is an artist who is experiencing grief stemming from a tragic car accident where her husband was fatally injured. She puts all her love and grief in the art she creates and after five years she is ready to live again. Encouraged by her best friend and roommate, Joy, Feyi starts to date again. Her first relationship starts with a sexual encounter at a party, but does not last because she couldn’t release the hold that grief and her committment to her deceased husband had on her.

She eventually meets Nasir Blake and their connection is stronger but Feyi want to take the relationship slow, starting as friends. As Nasir gets to know more about Feyi, he puts her in touch with individuals who are interested in her artwork, enough so that she is invited to show her work in an art show in a tropical paradise where Nasir was raised. Upon arrival, she is surprised to find that Nasir’s father is celebrity chef, Alim Blake. Also surprising is Feyi’s attraction and feelings for Alim, someone who should be off limits. It’s their shared grief and survivor’s remorse which draws them at first until they both contemplate if this can be their second chance at love.

This book is beautiful. The relationship between Feyi and Joy is reminiscent of Issa and Molly’s from Insecure. The chemistry between Feyi and Alim is infectious and although the circumstances are shady and somewhat taboo, I couldn’t help but root for them. This is my first book from Emezi but it will not be my last. Looking for others now.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book.
I have to be honest, I didn't really know what to expect after reading the first chapter. I almost decided not to read because the language being used during conversations, were strong for me and not something I would say.
Once I got past that, I did enjoy the book. It was something different. Young man falls for beautiful woman., who is a widow, just getting back into the dating scene. The decide to take things slow, start off as friends. They go to meet his father, as friends, on a beautiful island. Something happens when they arrive, that wasn't expected.
This book is about loss, love, friendships and finding something where you least expect it. I give this book a 3.5 out of 5.