How Would You Rate December's Pick?
0%5 - Perfection!
0%4
0%3 - It was okay but would not read again
0%2
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-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 U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--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 and obsessions with other people. 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.
Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings--for love, and a place to call home.
Discussion Questions
Why does the main character remain unnamed? What does this add to the story?
While the narrator never explicitly states their sexuality, their experiences speak to bisexuality. How do you think the novel works with and against the stereotype that bisexual people are never satisfied?
The narrator’s relationship with her mother, Laila. It is implied that Laila has Borderline Personality Disorder, though it’s also apparent that it’s not something she herself has ever acknowledged or tried to deal with.
How did the non linear telling of the story affect how you viewed it as a whole?
What do you think of the opening quote, “PLEASURE DISAPPOINTS, possibility never.” -Soren Kierkegaard
What does the title, You Exist Too Much, mean?
What shared experiences do you have with the MC?
Can you point out some of the cultural references to Palestine? What is something you learned?
Who was your favorite lover?
Do you like how the story ended? What questions are left unanswered?