Evelina | AvalinahsBooks's Reviews > You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

How I read this: Free ebook copy received through Edelweiss

Well, hell, I didn't expect this story AT ALL. There are so many things that are amazing about it, but I think first and foremost is the thing that, when you start reading it, you wonder if it's romance. But then you realize that it's not romance. Because it's just not, and you thought it was romance purely because it's about a woman figuring out relationships. And THEN you start understanding the decades of internalized misogyny, because you just caught yourself thinking that when it's a man struggling with his romantic feelings and complicated situations, it's a literary novel, and when it's a woman struggling with her romantic feelings and complicated situations, it's a romance novel. So that's a little bit of a shock to deal with inside of yourself. And when you do, you realize it's awesome to even write a mainstream book that is a statement by simply being what it is. Normalize women's stories and their importance, their need to be taken seriously. Our lives are literary too.

But anyway. This book was a wild ride for sure. It will probably make you feel a lot of things and challenge a lot of moral beliefs you have. Your choice whether to judge the characters, or understand them. The author presents ample chance for the reader to form their decisions and empathize with the characters. And yet, it's also hard not to judge them in some places because, well, they make shite decisions. But sometimes, every decision in the current situation is going to be shite, so you're stuck making one, and that's that. I found that really refreshing about this story.

Another important thing here, is that the main character is kind of set up to be easily slut shamed by the reader. I'm not saying you will, but a lot of readers will want to. A big part of this story is trying to understand the character and getting over your urge to slut shame her, and instead to understand her reasons and what you'd do in her shoes. It's incredibly smart to write it like this, because we like to think we're progressive and liberal in life, we care about what really matters, but in life situations it's easy to go emotional and slip, and default to what society has taught you about women and what their rights and duties are. Reading this challenges a lot of these beliefs that are ingrained in our heads, and I believe it's a good thing. That's what literature is supposed to do.

Some people will be inclined to say that love like the one in the story is overdramatized. Okay, maybe I have not experienced a story this messed up in my life (and thank god for that...), but I can attest to the fact that in my opinion, the author writes life-changing love very well. There were hardships in my personal stories, and I've had some of those conversations. It's unreal how well they were written. As well as the emotions that spark them. A love that comes with hardship, often comes with great reward.

The characters were pretty amazing too. Like, even from the start I could tell some of them would act the way they did later in the story. The author wrote them realistically and to be able to write male entitledness into it is nothing short of genius. It was a brilliant character study in that sense. But even apart from that, there are no idealized characters. They've all got jagged edges, the good and the bad, and they're all so colorful.

About the only thing I couldn't personally vibe with too well was the amounts of physical and sexual stuff in the book, because it's just not my life experience, but that's not to say it's a bad thing (and I'm certainly not docking any stars for it.) I've been able to vibe with the rest of the book and to just take the author's word on the rest of it. So, word of warning - if you don't like explicit scenes, maybe keep an open mind, or do not choose to read the book. It's an important part of the story, so you won't be able to just skip it.

All in all, this is a raw, colorful experience - like any book by this author. I always know I can trust their books to deliver. So did this one!

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

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