Reviews with content warning for Blood - Rouge

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

caroisreading's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I've fallen deep for Mona Awad's writing. Darkly funny, beautiful, masterful. I'm still trying to absorb what I've just read, through stupefied tears.

"Rouge" is much more than horror, or magical realism, even absurdism. This is a reflective, heartbreaking story about a daughter and mother, a metaphorical lens on grief and childhood trauma. It's wrapped in something familiar to us, borrowing every reference from Grimms fairytales, and is just as disturbing as the originals.

For me, this book has an exciting start, a more dense and repetitive middle, and the most perfect ending chapters I've ever read. Chapter 30, specifically, is creative and emotional genius, and I'll never forget about it.

Without giving too much away, the Tom Cruise reference is incredible in giving the exact visual we didn't know we needed, the smiling mask covering something else.

Please give this a read if you need another mother-daughter story to heal from, like dark twisting plots, unreliable narrators, and have survived the YouTube Beauty world.

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kendal_reads's review against another edition

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bookb1itch's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

So. Weird. Creepy and sexy and literary. Something that could be read over and over, with new interpretations. Gorgeous descriptions, with the repeated themes of red, roses, silk, water. When Belle starts "forgetting" words, some of her substitutes are really telling: eg "sin" instead of "skin"; "derange" instead of "arrange". There's a real madness there, in amongst the Tom Cruise and 80s music references. I waited months for this from the public library and it was so worth it.

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makeintoall's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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applejuiceinabox's review against another edition

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challenging dark inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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ariep's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was a weird book. I really like the writing, i found it to be a very compelling read. It was challenging though, to be in that mindset of such strong self loathing and envy. It was especially challenging to read about wanting to have lighter skin; it brought me right back into the mindset I had when I was younger, wishing I wasn’t a brown girl. It was very interesting and emotional. I don’t know that I liked it, or that I’d recommend it, but it did evoke a lot of strong emotions in me.

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kittkat's review

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dark funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Mona Awad hat mich mal wieder absolut verzaubert. Die letzten 2 Tage des Lesens waren wie ein Fiebertraum, aber ich konnte das Buch einfach nicht weglegen.

Marva tells us self-care is telling yourself you matter every morning in the mirror. You should talk to it. Become friends with what you see there.

Belle ist süchtig nach Skincare, weil sie schon seit ihrer Kindheit sehr unsicher war und eifersüchtig auf alle die schöner waren. Ihr größter Komplex war ihre wunderschöne Mutter, mit der sie seit eines Unfalls keinen Kontakt mehr hatte und die nun tot aufgefunden wurde. Wie ihre Mutter vor ihrem Tod wird jetzt auch Belle in eine unheimliche Spa-Sekte hineingezogen. Sie bieten ihr eine kostenlose Behandlung an, aber sie nehmen mehr von ihr als sie geben 🫣.

I envy 🌹.

Wie bei Bunny ging es in dieser Geschichte um so viel mehr als im Blurb angeteasert wurde.

Die toxische aber vielfältige Mutter-Tochter-Beziehung.
Erwachsenwerden.
Erwachsenwerden ohne Vater und als Minderheit sogar im eigenen Haus.
Der Schaden, den Neid alleine anrichten kann.
Whitewashing und internalisierter Rassismus.

Dazu hat die Autorin noch so einen hypnotisierenden, humorvollen Schreibstil, der einen komplett in die Welt des Geschehens zieht. Auch wenn die Geschichte etwas zu lang gezogen wurde und man zwischendurch den roten Faden verliert, sehe ich das Buch irgendwie als ein Kunstwerk, das reine Interpretationssache ist.

Bonus: Mona Awad hat es wirklich geschafft so viele klassische Märchen (und sogar bisschen ägyptische Mythologie) auf die eine oder andere Art einzubauen: Dornröschen, Schneewittchen, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Der Zauberer von Oz, Ariel, … + sehr überraschend Tom Cruise, ~~ich meine Seth~~, den Mann werde ich definitiv in meinen Alpträumen sehen 😭!!

„Oh my god, is it really you?“ - „It is really me,“ Tom Cruise whispers. Tom Cruise. Standing in Mother‘s mirror. Tom Cruise, in the flesh.

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