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You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty: A Novel

Akwaeke Emezi

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A Good Morning America Buzz Pick

“A love story like no other, and this one…will have you gripped from page one.” —Vogue

“An unabashed ode to living with, and despite, pain and mortality.” —The New York Times Book Review

A New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and “one of our greatest living writers” (Shondaland) reimagines the love story in this “riveting and emotional exploration of grief and taking a second chance on love” (PopSugar).

Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again. It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene.

Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career. She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person who is most definitely off-limits—his father.

Can she release her past and honor her grief while still embracing her future? And, of course, there’s the biggest question of all—how far is she willing to go for a second chance at love?

“With tenderhearted characters and an immaculate balance of realistic dialogue and lyrical prose” (BuzzFeed), Akwake Emezi’s vivid and passionate writing takes us deep into a world of possibility and healing. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is a “a love letter to the brave choices we make in the name of love, the costs we pay for it, and the glory of the reward at the end” (Marie Claire).

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Posts about this title from Boundless Press

Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Oct 18 2023

the books i bought on vacation in the UK & France 🇬🇧🇫🇷 | vacation book haul & visiting bookstores 📚

Check out all the books I acquired on my 2+ week trip to the UK and Paris! :)

Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Nov 24 2022

all the eBooks on my eReader | my DIGITAL TBR

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📚 join my book club 📚 read books by BIPOC each month and join me during monthly liveshows to discuss! 🤍 announcement Video: https://youtu.be/u-aI8tD1RcQ 🤍 discuss on Fable: https://l.fable.co/readincolour 🤍 discuss on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/readincolourbookclub/ 🤍 discuss on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReadinColorClub

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💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com

faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)

🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!

🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!

48 books

Posts about this book from across Bindery

Ronnica Reads\ \ Ronnica Fatt\ \ • Mar 17

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The Trans Rights Readathon starts today, and here is my TBR. Not pictured: Queen of Faces by Petra Lord and Awakened by A.E. Osworth. What will you be reading?\ \ \ \ Join for free or login

Trans Rights Readathon Starts Today!

17 books

chronicallybookish\ \ Kaley\ \ • Nov 4 2025

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october wrap up--yes no maybe

As always—remember to check TW if needed 🫶🏻 #booktok #bookreviews #yesnomaybe #readingwrapup #romancebooktok

20 books

Wanderland Reads\ \ Sayer\ \ • Nov 3 2025

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If you grew up in a conservative religion, you probably learned early that desire was dangerous. You were told to guard your heart, protect your purity, and stay “undefiled.” Lust was a sin. Curiosity was a trap. Wanting was something to fear, not to understand.\ \ By the time you reached adulthood, you might have developed a complicated relationship with your body and desire. You might freeze when someone touches you, or feel a quiet hum of shame even when you’re safe and loved. You might crave intimacy but pull back at the first sign of arousal because it feels “wrong.” - HIS THIS WAS MEEEEEE!\ \ That’s not brokenness. That’s conditioning.\ \ Purity culture teaches you to separate from your own body. It makes desire feel like a test of morality rather than a natural signal from a living, breathing body. When your worth is tied to your ability to suppress, it becomes almost impossible to experience desire without guilt.\ \ Even when you leave the belief system behind, the reflex stays. You might intellectually know sex is normal, but your body flinches like you’re about to be caught. You might say “I’m free,” yet still whisper “sorry” after pleasure.\ \ This is where romance novels come in—not as escapism, but as education.\ \ Romance as a way of reclamation.\ \ Reading romance allows you to witness desire handled with tenderness, care, and consent. It models what safety looks like when two people explore attraction without punishment. The genre gives space for curiosity, communication, and mutual pleasure—concepts that purity culture erased.\ \ When a character asks, “Do you like this?” and the answer is a confident yes, it’s more than a sexy line. It’s a demonstration of autonomy. It’s a reminder that desire is not sin. It’s sensation. It’s communication. It’s trust.\ \ For those unlearning purity culture, this kind of modeling matters. You don’t have to perform confidence to start healing. Sometimes you begin by reading it, seeing it lived on the page, and letting your nervous system notice what safety feels like secondhand.\ \ From a trauma-informed lens, this is exposure therapy in the gentlest form. Reading about touch, pleasure, or intimacy lets you explore what your body avoided—without real-world risk. Your brain learns new associations: desire can be safe, pleasure can coexist with calm, love can mean choice rather than control.\ \ Each story becomes a small rehearsal for trust. You’re building tolerance for your own future.\ \ When you read romance after purity culture, you’re not learning how to have sex. You’re learning how to want again.\ \ You’re learning that attraction doesn’t require apology.\ \ You’re learning that connection doesn’t erase selfhood.\ \ You’re learning that pleasure isn’t proof of sin.\ \ Desire is not a moral failure. It’s a sign that your body is waking up to its own wholeness.\ \ If you want to use romance as part of your healing, begin with stories where emotional safety and consent are central. Look for slow burns, open communication, and partners who prioritize comfort over performance.\ \ Try reading with curiosity instead of critique. Notice where your body tenses, when you blush, when you soften. Those are clues about where shame still lives and where freedom is waiting.\ \ You were taught to fear desire, but desire itself was never the enemy.\ \ You were taught to silence your body, but your body has been speaking truth all along.\ \ You were taught that wanting makes you unholy, yet every tender pulse of longing is proof that you’re still here, still capable of connection, still alive.\ \ Romance stories aren’t the complete solution, but they’re a doorway—a way to practice wanting without punishment.\ \ Ask yourself:\ \ What would it feel like to want something without guilt?\ \ And what if that feeling wasn’t dangerous at all, but sacred?\ \ Relearning Desire Through Romance \ \ 1. Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner (sapphic)\ \ A quiet, queer slow burn between a Hollywood showrunner and her assistant. There’s mutual respect, consent, and emotional care on every page. It models how attraction grows through safety and trust.\ \ 2. The Roommate by Rosie Danan (hetero)\ \ Smart, funny, and sex-positive. It dismantles shame around pleasure and features a heroine learning that desire can be generous and collaborative, not transactional.\ \ 3. Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert (queer)\ \ Brilliant academic heroine meets emotionally fluent partner who celebrates her ambition and sexuality. It normalizes communication about wants and boundaries. Actually this whole series.\ \ 4. The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite (sapphic)\ \ A sapphic historical where two women find safety and sensuality after loss. It reclaims intimacy from duty and reframes it as shared curiosity.\ \ 5. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi (sapphic/queer)\ \ A story about reclaiming desire and pleasure after grief. It explores how trauma and sensuality can coexist without one canceling the other.\ \ Some of these are repeats from the free tier post the other day, and go check that post out for more recs along this line.\ \ Upgrade for $5 or login

Relearning Desire After Purity Culture (How Romance Stories Help You Reclaim Wanting Without Shame)

5 books

Wanderland Reads\ \ Sayer\ \ • Nov 2 2025

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[Romance novels have always been about hope. They promise emotional connection, communication, and repair. When you read inclusive love stories—especially sapphic ones—you’re not only witnessing romance, you’re watching healing in motion. These stories dismantle shame and rewrite what safety and intimacy can look like when everyone is allowed to belong.\ \ As a trauma therapist, I often use romance in bibliotherapy with clients who struggle with attachment wounds, shame, or fear of being seen. Inclusive romances provide more than escapism. They model what emotional safety looks like in relationships. They remind readers that love can be gentle, patient, and affirming.\ \ Love After Trauma: Stories That Make Space for Healing\ \ Healing isn’t linear, and neither are these stories. Sapphic romances that include therapy, self-reflection, and recovery arcs let readers see that healing and love can coexist.\ \ Books like Battle Scars by Meghan O’Brien or Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner show characters working through trauma without being defined by it. They fall in love while learning to regulate emotion, set boundaries, and communicate—skills that mirror therapeutic goals.\ \ When I recommend stories like these in session, it’s often to clients who believe they have to be “fully healed” before they can be loved. Reading characters who love and are loved through imperfection helps dismantle that belief.\ \ Bibliotherapy here isn’t about identifying with every plot point. It’s about seeing your nervous system reflected in another person’s healing arc. Clients often say, “If she can learn to trust again, maybe I can too.”\ \ Love looks different when it carries the weight of culture, race, or community expectation. Intersectional sapphic romances—like Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers or You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi—show the intersections of queerness, race, and belonging.\ \ These stories normalize complexity. They explore what it means to exist at multiple margins and still claim joy. For clients of color, especially queer women, reading these stories becomes an act of witnessing. They see themselves not as side characters but as the main story.\ \ In therapy, I might ask:\ \

How does this character balance identity and love?\ \
What cultural or familial expectations shape how she expresses desire?\ \
Where does she give herself permission to want more?\ \ \ These reflections often open conversations about cultural trauma, code-switching, or the fear of losing belonging when stepping into authenticity.\ \ Pleasure and Power: Reclaiming your Body\ \ For trauma survivors, especially those who’ve experienced body-based harm, pleasure can feel inaccessible or unsafe. Reading stories where diverse bodies and sexualities are celebrated—like Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner or The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite—helps reconnect the idea of pleasure with safety and agency.\ \ When clients read scenes where consent is explicit and communication is mutual, they’re not just reading erotica. They’re watching a healthy model of attunement. The body learns through observation too.\ \ In bibliotherapy sessions, I ask clients to note:\ \
How do these characters talk about consent?\ \
What language makes desire feel safe?\ \
How do power and vulnerability coexist in this story?\ \ \ The answers often become springboards for conversations about reclaiming autonomy and rebuilding trust in one’s body.\ \ Inclusive romance teaches something therapy alone can’t always provide: an emotional blueprint for connection. Readers internalize what safety feels like through story. They learn pacing, repair, and communication by seeing it modeled repeatedly and gently.\ \ When clients see love that looks like theirs—two women, a trans character, a fat protagonist, a disabled heroine—they see proof that their body and identity are worthy of tenderness. That experience, even in fiction, begins to rewire shame into self-compassion.\ \ In my work, I often frame reading as “emotional rehearsal.” When a client reads a story about vulnerability, their nervous system gets to practice what it might feel like to open up—without real-world risk. That safety-through-story is where processing begins.\ \ I don’t assign books like homework. I offer them as companions. We use them to reflect, name patterns, and imagine what healthy connection can look like. Sometimes a novel says what the client can’t yet articulate. That’s the quiet magic of bibliotherapy.\ \ Here is a non-comprehensive list of books I recommend\ \ \ \ Join for free or login](https://wanderlandreads.binderybooks.com/item/Gf4ozbJU7XBcUmlWt3GN/)

Why Inclusive Love Stories Belong in the Therapy Room

9 books

Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Sep 20 2025

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romance recs? from ME? never thought you’d see the day, huh?

📚 books mentioned: - Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson - You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi - Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz

👗💄: - dress is from @hillhouse, rented from @nuuly - pink sparkly eyeshadow is Sparklestik from @halfmagicbeauty - purple duochrome eyeliner is from @moiracosmetics - (also if you have a question about my makeup or something i’m wearing, most of it is curated in my shopmy!)

thank you to Atria Books for the gifted copy!

#romancebooks #romancebookrecs #romancebookreviews #romancebookrecommendations #starrysteph #nycinfluencer #diversebookstagram #nycbookstagram #bookstagram @groveatlantic @atriabooks #atriapartner @entangledteen @entangled_publishing

3 books

Wanderland Reads\ \ Sayer\ \ • Apr 7 2025

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Queer Books: M/F Pairings

Still queer, just a different flavor. Let me know in the comments what your favorite queer book with MF dynamics is!

#queerromance #queerbooks #romancebooks

43 books

Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Mar 9 2025

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30+ trans & nonbinary book recs | trans rights readathon 2025 prep!

feel free to recommend your favorite trans book in the comment section (or pitch your own if you're an author)!!

let's fill these comments with love so this video doesn't end up on the scary side of the algorithm.

☆ featured links ☆ official trans rights readathon website (with TONS of resources): https://transrightsreadathon.carrd.co/ PLEASE sign up here to be included in the data: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/2025-trans-rights-readathon 💫 join me on bindery (celestial - exclusive content, discord, book club, and more): https://celestial.binderybooks.com/

☆ everything I mentioned (in order) ↓ - Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi - Dear Senthuran by Akwaeke Emezi - Pet by Akwaeke Emezi - Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi - The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi - You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi - Content Warning: Everything by Akwaeke Emezi - Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi - The Deep by Rivers Solomon - Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon - An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon - Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White - The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White - Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White - The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros - Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros - Bone Weaver by Aden Polydoros - Ring of Solomon by Aden Polydoros - The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey - Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey - Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas - The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas - Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas - Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki - Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun L. Harrison - Heavyweight by Solomon J. Brager - The Seep by Chana Porter - The Devourers by Indra Das - The First Bright Thing by J. R. Dawson - The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia - Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo - Station Six by S.J. Klapecki - Junker Seven by Olive J. Kelley - Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto

↓ find me in more places ↓ 🎵 tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@starrysteph 📸 insta: https://www.instagram.com/starry.steph 🦋 bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/starrysteph.bsky.social 📚 storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/starrysteph 📖 goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/147956803-steph-starrysteph 💌 email: starrystephbooks@gmail.com more: https://beacons.ai/starrysteph

☆ resources ☆ 🇵🇸 learn more about the history of Palestine: https://decolonizepalestine.com/ 🇨🇩 learn more about what's happening in the DRC: https://friendsofthecongo.org/ 🇸🇩 Sudan Solidarity Collective: https://sudansolidarity.com/

34 books

Arcane Nights Press\ \ Cassidy\ \ • Aug 26 2024

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BookTok 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Challenge!

I’ve seen a few people do this video so I had to share mine! 5 Favorites, 4 TBR Books, 3 Go to Recs, 2 Five Star Reads, and 1 Current read.

15 books

Celestial\ \ Steph\ \ • Feb 22 2024

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one star reviews of books i loved!

which one convinced you the most? 😇 part six of one star goodreads reviews of books i enjoyed!

9 books

Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Oct 18 2023

Check out all the books I acquired on my 2+ week trip to the UK and Paris! :)

Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Nov 24 2022

all the eBooks on my eReader | my DIGITAL TBR

#CASETiFY #CASETiFYHaul #casetifypartner

Sant Reads' channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/SantReads

other places to find me 🤍 my website: https://www.jananiekvelu.com/ 🤍 my series # EpicBookRecs on the Epic Reads Channel: https://bit.ly/2XziOfz

💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com

faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)

🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!

🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!

48 books