Reviews with content warning for Racism - Rouge

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Rouge by Mona Awad

50 reviews

ashyyy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

The only way I can describe this book is comforting horror. Like a blanket that's slowly suffocating you. The narrative voice is more poetic prose and leaves you unsure whether you've slept walked through one chapter or five chapters. It felt like a natural progression of the author's writing style from Bunny.

I didn't necessarily like the protagonist, but that doesn't mean I wasn't rooting for them. Same with the protagonist's mother. I went in loathing her and came out with an angry, but empathetic, outlook.

The whiplash ending was wild. From being tense about the treament to laughing about Tom Cruise to crying over grief in the shape of a jellyfish. What a time.

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kittkat's review against another edition

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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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acorny's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-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

5.0

This read like a nightmare and a dream. Beautiful writing and haunting imagery that will stick with me for a long time. Explores the complicated mother/daughter relationship in a very unique way.

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lindadreams's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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dehahs's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

1.5

I loved the idea of this book, and the prologue immediately drew me in. Belle was such a compelling character at the start — the fact that she was obsessive and single minded interestingly gave her character a lot of depth. However, about a third of the way through, I started to lose interested and contemplated DNFing this. What kept me reading was a spoiler (

Egyptian mythology

) which in reality wasn’t there. It became extremely repetitive and boring; They could have cut out the 5-7 hours in the middle and it wouldn’t have mattered much. I ended up putting this on 2x just so I could get through it.

I liked the wordplay in the latter chapters (

eucalyptus / apocalypse, vanity / insanity, serve / sever

); The writing was otherwise fine, if at times repetitive. The pacing was also very weird. The start was fine, the middle was slow and drawn out, and the ending felt rushed.

Besides Belle in the first third, I didn’t like any of the characters nor was I invested in any of them — except, maybe oddly, her dad.

I wish we found out more about him or explored Belle’s Egyptian heritage more. Also, if you’re going to hint at Egyptian mythology, do *something* with it.

Otherwise, the characters were quite flat. This was probably deliberate for everyone associated with the spa, but it would have been more impactful if the book was shorter. I’m not sure the narration helped; I found some of the accents quite grating.

While I apprciate the message this is trying to convey, I really, really wish the rampant racism/colourism which Belle has also internalised was confronted head on. Instead, all we get is a sense at the end that

Belle is starting to move on

. This is what the book should have spent more time on, rather than the aforementioned repetitive middle section. I get that not every book has to explicitly say racism is bad, etc., but there was so much happening that I don’t think this point was adequately conveyed as is.

Overall, I feel like the book focused too much on being an absurd horror story at the detriment of being a biting critique of the beauty industry.

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gladiolus17's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

Rouge was so crazy for me. It was written in a dreamlike quality, where nothing is certain and many things are oxymoronic. For example, I remember a line being “she smiles like she hates me.” (Read on audiobook so exact line is uncertain.)

Belle takes all the wrong decisions, putting herself deeper and deeper into this mysterious organization and ultimately going down the same path her mother took. I enjoyed the detail with skin care and the unsettling atmosphere of her skincare routine, and I also loved Belle’s mother as a character and her cutting but fashionable dress store. Even Tom Cruise, I enjoyed, though he threw me through a loop in the beginning. The characters in general were distinct and offputting. I loved Tad and the whorish cat Angelica!

I felt a little misled by the marketing. Rouge was described as writing about the cult-like beauty industry and the dangers about internalizing its gaze. I completely agree with the cult-like feeling of the beauty industry, as this book literally has a sort of memory eating cult in it, but I wish that beauty and ugliness was defined. Belle is described as beautiful by her mother and other adults in the book, but also ugly by her peers and by her own self. She describes herself as hairy and dark like her ogre father in the beginning, and I feel this is due to internalized racism, but this aspect is not reinforced with specifics throughout the narrative. Beauty is only defined in vague terms such as “white,” “lifted,” or in terms of skin itself being clear. There were seeds of racism dotted through the story, but it was not clearly tied in with any Eurocentric beauty standards like I expected. The narrative could’ve been just a little more cutthroat.

I also was left exiting the book with many questions about who Seth was or what he was. And what was his motive with trying to kill Noelle? Why did he think she was stealing Mirabelle’s beauty? I wish this was a bit more defined.

Edit: Okay another review said that Seth was a part of Egyptian mythology!!! Omg this brings a whole new layer I did not know, adding a rivalry between Belle’s father (Horus) and Seth. This deserves some further analysis.

All in all, I enjoyed this, but I wish there was more specificity.

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danimacuk's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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glassflowrr's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Another absolute masterpiece from Mona Awad. I love how dreamy and confusing it feels at times, and how well I'm able to feel Mirabelle's almost hypnotized state through the prose. The climax had me biting my nails and crying. Awad could write a book about a sentient shampoo bottle and I'd love it. It is definitely a challenging read if you aren't used to Awad's fever dream prose but I highly recommend it.

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elizabeth_lepore's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.0

Content Warnings

_scvvter's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

In these early stages of my reading journey, I always knew I wanted to read Awad's work. Something about her stood out to me. And when I saw I could rent her newest novel from my library, I immediately jumped at the chance.

Then I hate to wait more than 6 months for it to get to me because over 100 people in my city were ahead of me. When I finally got this, I was thinking "this better have been worth the wait.

And MY GOD WAS IT. I absolutely love this book. Awad was able to easily get me to sympathise with every character, even the ones with smaller roles. Her writing shoved me right into the story and had me waiting to get back to it any chance I could get. It was beautiful, heart-wrenching, and suspenseful.

The one thing I can say about this that isn't positive is that this doesn't feel like a horror novel at all.

literally the only part I found scary was toward the end and that was like 1% of the novel.

I would say if you're looking for a real horror story, I wouldn't pick this up.

In the end, what I great start to my reading of 2024 and it makes me have high hopes for all of Awad's other novels!

Final Score: 10/10

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