Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Rouge by Mona Awad

5 reviews

abicaro17's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.5

Belle is a stylist obsessed with beauty and skin. When she finds out her mother died in an accident, she flies to LA to face her past and confront the mysteries of her mothers odd, rich, skincare obsessed friends. This book is weird. Like no better way to say it: weird. Belle is basically so obsessed with being beautiful like her mother that when she finds the skincare "cult" her mother was a part of she immediately joins hoping to be as beautiful as her. This is a book of envy, vanity, madness, and manipulation. It is veryyy slow but it's just weird enough to be original and pretty good. I think my main complaints are with pacing and lack of explanation or a thoughtful ending. Like we never find out pretty much anything about Rouge and Hud Hudson or his brother. If you liked A Certain Hunger you'd probably like this. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Stalking, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, Toxic friendship, Classism, Medical content, Mental illness, Animal death, Death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Abandonment, Cursing, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, and Gore

linneak's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Blood, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Cannibalism, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Sexual content

Moderate: Gaslighting, Addiction, Abandonment, Alcohol, Dysphoria, and Body shaming

mmccombs's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious reflective slow-paced

3.5

This was quite weird and unexpected, even for a Mona Awad book! I didn’t know anything going in to this, so to say this was a Journey may be an understatement. It’s a fever dream of a fairy tale and a grief-induced fugue state that analyzes a brutal mother-daughter relationship and the beauty industry, there was just a lot going on. And it was also way too long, there were multiple parts where I felt like I had already read a section almost exactly like it before, so I think it could have been paired down in the middle. The ending was satisfying and I came away from it feeling lots of feelings about how much we are forced to focus on beauty, on never aging, on “whitening and brightening,” on comparing ourselves to our mothers or our daughters and never quite feeling like you’re enough. Really interesting topics covered in this book, it’ll leave you feeling a bit disoriented (and feeling a bit weird[er] about Tom Cruise).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Racism and Medical content

andrewhatesham's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Body shaming, Cultural appropriation, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Grief, Medical content, Alcohol, and Cursing

melissa_h's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense 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

3.5

Another dreamlike book by Mona Awad.  It is probably my favorite of the three that  I have read.  

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Content Warnings

Minor: Body horror and Medical content