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You Exist Too Much

A Novel

by Zaina Arafat

Narrator Zehra Jane Naqvi

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Length 7 hours 53 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“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 disconcerting feeling that can accompany settling down are recognizable, 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, or who has been disappointed to find that sometimes the love of others isn’t enough.”
— Margaret Leonard • Dotters Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Here we follow the intimate story of a young bisexual Palestinian woman as she struggles with acceptance and addiction. Zaina Arafat does an incredible job of showcasing mental and physical health issues and the hardships that come with being a Palestinian American woman. I also really resonated with the issues she faces with her mother-never really feeling like someone who is supposed to love you unconditionally (my daddy issues are showing) truly loved her. This is truly a beautiful, sexy (which I was not expecting), and heartfelt story that I will tell everyone to read. I love this book so much, and I wish I hadn't left it sitting on my TBR pile for so long. ”
— Anna • Underground Books

Summary

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a twelve-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 sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter.

Told in vignettes that flash between the US and the Middle East, Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as "love addiction." In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.

You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love, and a place to call home.

Fiction Romance LGBTQIA+ Fiction