YOU EXIST TOO MUCH
2021 Lambda Literary Award Winner
"My favorite Book of the year" -- Roxane Gay
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PRAISE/RECOGNITION:
"[A] provocative and seductive debut . . . Novels like these don't exist enough." ―O, The Oprah Magazine, 1 of 31 LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape This Year
"This story about love, identity, gender and family is brilliantly written and questions the effects of maternal love." ―Good Morning America, 25 Novels You'll Want to Read this Summer
"For anyone who’s ever felt their body or identity takes up too much space, this deeply affecting story of doubt and and love is a gut-punch and a solace." ―ELLE, The 30 Most Anticipated New Books of Summer
“You exist too much,” a young Palestinian-American girl’s mother tells her, and the rest of the novel functions as a repudiation of that phrase."―VOGUE, 7 New Books to Read While You’re Stuck at Home This June
"You Exist Too Much tells the story of a bisexual Palestinian-American girl whose romantic obsessions and self-destructive impulses lead her to an unconventional treatment center called The Ledge, where she must reckon with the traumas that she has inherited from the places and people who raised her." ―Harper's Bazaar, 14 LGBTQ Books to Look For in 2020
"The unnamed protagonist of Zaina Arafat’s debut novel, a bisexual Palestinian-American DJ with literary ambitions, finds herself caught between several poles: her two countries; virtue and desire; family and personal ambition." ―TIME, 45 New Books You Need to Read This Summer
"The writing here is electric and carries the narrative all the way through. This is an exciting and dynamic book that explores intersectional identity and human longing extremely well." ―Electric Literature, 14 Highly Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books Coming This Spring
"This is a book of appetite and recklessness, obsession and addiction. It's the trickiest of territories, this type of intense examination of the self, but Zaina Arafat's lyrical, provocative writing is wholly captivating, startling in its honesty, unsettling in all the best ways." ―Refinery29, The 25 Books You’ll Want To Read This Summer
"A brilliant, bitingly funny and heartfelt novel, You Exist Too Much peels back the layers of one young woman's cultural, sexual and religious identities as she expands her internal understanding of what — and who — creates her sense of home." ―Shondaland, Six Books You Can't Miss This June
"A bildungsroman of desire, shame, and addiction." ―Electric Literature, Books by Women & Nonbinary Writers of Color to Read This Year
"Told with sympathy and what seems like some irony, You Exist Too Much intrigues me for its multiculturalism and dissection of the notion that romantic love can be an all-bearing measure of personal fulfillment." ―Literary Hub, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year
"A novel of self-discovery following a Palestinian-American girl as she navigates queerness, love addiction, and a series of tumultuous relationships." ―The Millions, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year
" In her uniquely written debut novel, Arafat tackles the challenges of being a queer Palestinian American attempting to disentagle identities to locate and celebrate the true self."
― Ms. Magazine, Feminist Books Coming Out in 2020
"This debut novel follows the protagonist as she travels between New York and the Middle East and grapples with her sexual identity." ― BuzzFeed, These Are Our Most Highly Anticipated Books Of 2020
"Arafat's sharply written vignettes feel like a revelatory memoir." ―them, 14 Upcoming Queer Books to Get You Through to Summer
"For all those who’ve colored outside the lines, as this narrator does, Zaina Arafat offers comfort in the form of a book: It’s okay to 'exist too much'"―Bitch Media, 27 Novels Feminists Should Read in 2020
"It is so rare that we get to see a bisexual woman centered in a novel, rarer that we get to see bi woman of color, and even rarer (to my knowledge as a reader, never) that that woman is Arab. Such is the gift that Arafat gives us in You Exist Too Much. Here, a Palestinian American woman struggles with coming-out and confronting her addiction and mental illness, which are tied to her traumatic experiences as a navigator of many worlds, none of which give her a firm sense of belonging. What I love about this book is that through her writing of it, Arafat teaches us how to love her protagonist, who despite her cynicism and self-destructive coping mechanisms, offers many teachable moments in vulnerability, empathy, and love. A quick, nuanced read about the challenges of addiction, family, and self-acceptance." —Serena Morales, Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)
"Zaina Arafat's You Exist Too Much is one of my favorite books of the year. This debut novel blew me away. Arafat's narrator is confident in her vulnerability; her desire to be seen and understood is visceral and uncomfortably familiar. The intoxication of unrequited love and the unsettling feeling that can accompany settling down are recognizable, and yet, in Arafat's capable hands, I was transported. This book is for anyone who has struggled to fit into society's neat boxes, who has been frustrated when emotions don't follow a logical path, and who has been disappointed to find that sometimes the love of others isn't enough." —Margaret Leonard, Dotters Books (Eau Claire, WI)
"Arafat skillfully shows us how family and culture shape and affect our psyche even as we fight to be true to the inner self and desires that struggle to rise to the surface. Narrated by a queer Palestinian-American woman, we are given a glimpse into how societal assumptions and norms further complicate these personal narratives by ignoring the interplay of multiple marginalized identities that create a complex human who cannot fit into one idealized and expected mold. Repeatedly unable to meet anyone’s expectations, our narrator who remains unnamed, continually sabotages the relationships in her life as she struggles to find acceptance, love, and peace. We move through her story in an erratic pattern experiencing her quest to find healing and acceptance of herself while receiving glimpses of the past experiences that shaped her through vignettes that are triggered by an experience in her current life. A complex and compelling story from voices we often ignore or cannot hear through the clamor of the dominant narrative." —Cori Cusker, Bright Side Bookshop (Flagstaff, AZ)
"You Exist Too Much is for anyone who has been labelled as such, anyone who feels their life bumping against the edges of societal expectations, anyone who (I'll say it) has ever judged someone else for their 'too-muchness.' Arafat's unnamed narrator engages vibrantly with life in all of its complexity, moving not only between multiple relationships and geographies, but also between emotional, physical, and intellectual ways of understanding her decisions. As a habitual lover of rom-coms and happy endings, I find the honesty of You Exist Too Much new and refreshing—a fast-paced coming-of-age story that represents the feelings of getting "stuck" alongside those of evolution and growth." —Hannah Fenster, The Ivy Bookshop (Baltimore, MD)
"Opening the pages of a debut novel is like opening a Christmas present from an unknown gifter––what can it contain, you ask. Will I like it? Will I learn something new? Zaina Arafat’s debut answers these questions in a narrative that is rich with cultural references, real-life drama and insightful observations about human nature. It’s a coming out novel, a social warning, an addiction tale and a darn good read. Life is different for a Palestinian-American girl turned woman, yet in many important ways, it is not different at all. This is a time-slip through the life of one such young woman, told in vignettes, with real heart. It’s not easy to put down." —Linda Bond, Auntie's Bookstore (Spokane, WA)
"From its first chapter, I knew You Exist Too Much would be a rare and wonderful book. Our narrator, a bisexual Palestinian-American woman, grapples with her self-destructive tendencies in love in the shadow of her dysfunctional relationship with her beautiful but cruel mother. She travels in the Middle East, attends graduate school in the Midwest, embraces the nightlife of New York City, and retreats to a strange but sympathetic center for love addicts; she meditates on solitude, lust, gender, sex, desire, ambition, and obligation. Zaina Arafat's protagonist subverts the 'unlikeable woman' trope; she thinks she's beaten us to the punch by hating herself. Joke's on her: I love her, flaws and all, and I think she will, one day, too. I'll stay up all night listening to any story Zaina Arafat wants to tell." —Em Perper, Curious Iguana (Frederick, MD)
"It's hard to be true to yourself when the voices your family and culture drown out any hope of hearing who you are. You Exist Too Much features a young bisexual Palestinian-American woman struggling to come into her own and her story is gripping." —Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop (Athens, GA)
"At times, gritty and raw. At others, touching and sentimental. This book drew me in immediately! The narrator and the narration immediately take me back to my younger days as a baby gay. Hiding from yourself, hiding from your family, and hiding from the world. Your true self needs to breathe and needs to read this book!" —Shane Mullen, Left Bank Books (St. Louis, MO)
"Wow—this book is an amazing debut novel. Polished, poetic prose is deftly coupled with the story of a young woman who sets the stage of her life with this thought: 'Ambiguity was an unsettling yet exhilarating space.' Zaina Arafat lets the reader inhabit this space of ambiguity with this queer Palestinian American woman whose name is absent. We come to know her in a more intimate way, however. We come to know her as she gives us the names of those around her—the people she uses as a lens through which to see herself. We see her growth, painful as it is. We see her existence and find that we might inhabit and exhibit ambiguity ourselves, regardless of the ways in which we define ourselves. You Exist Too Much is a necessary read, not only for those in the LGBTQ community who have been told that they are aberrations in the norm but for anyone who has ever been made to feel that that they exist too much." —Christine Havens, BookPeople (Austin, TX)
"You Exist Too Much is a wonderful, surprising and thoroughly entertaining debut." ―Geoff Dyer
"You Exist Too Much gets desire at a deep level: where it comes from, how it pushes and tugs, and how it's virtually never just about who it's about. As the narrator pinballs from one disastrous affair to the next, we get more than the chronicle of a young full-blown love addict, but a keen study in how our wants are bound to place, race, gender, religion, psychology, and family. Zaina Arafat speaks for the persistently hungry." ―Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens
"Zaina Arafat has dreamed up a narrator who claws herself off the page in her aliveness, ripped between an insurmountable urge to chase desire and a longing for stability, cultural and familial acceptance, and lasting love. The result is an aching, deeply humane bildungsroman that superbly examines the gap between what we have and what we want. Arafat's narrator is propelled by a need to consume other people and know them deeply in attempts to satisfy a bottomless well of thirst. Reading You Exist Too Much will make you want to exist right beside its writer, learning from its stories forever." ―Kristen Radtke, author of Imagine Wanting Only This
"You Exist Too Much is the best kind of debut: pulsing with intellect, soul, and urgency, a book that feels like it needed to be written. Zaina Arafat is a conduit to the hard human stuff that most of us don't want to see; she grabs you, makes you look, and you never want to turn away." ―Lucas Mann, author of Captive Audience: On Love and Reality TV, Lord Fear, and Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere
"You Exist Too Much brings the reader so deep into the rationalizations of love addiction that they start to feel reasonable. This novel is a complete envelopment in the protagonist's mind and her desire, bringing to life the interplay of cultural, familial, and personal baggage that makes her feel a lack, and that drives her, again and again, to try to fill it. It's stunning, and will stay with me for a long time." — Lilly Dancyger, editor of BURN IT DOWN and author of NEGATIVE SPACE
"What a breath of fresh air! Zaina Arafat takes a familiar figure―the restless, womanizing narrator of many a canonical novel―and reimagines it to mordant and delightful effect. Her queer, Palestinian American, love-addict protagonist is pining mostly for a sense of belonging and purpose. She's a deeply relatable character who beautifully conveys the anguish of trying to figure out a life between categories of various kinds. You Exist Too Much is a moving, irreverent, darkly entertaining novel about the agony of family, the mysteries of romantic love, and the painful work of learning where we stop and others begin. Arafat is a true original." ―Nina Renata Aron, author of Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls