Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Rouge

Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Rouge by Mona Awad

9 reviews

meg_thebrave's review against another edition

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funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

Overall, really enjoyed this read. A very satisfying ending, even if the middle was very confusing. It’s a fun time.

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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.

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

Content Warnings

othersociologist's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

mispaintedlady's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Content Warnings

ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

“Just sick, I tell myself. But no, not just sick. I know the word I feel. The one Mother taught me from Snow White that is so many bad feelings at once. That I feel when I watch Tom Cruise with any girl, when I watch Mother put on her hat with the wide brim to protect her pale face. The dark, twisting poison one that aches and eats and empties. And wants. All by itself.”

TITLE—Rouge

AUTHOR—Mona Awad

PUBLISHED—2023

PUBLISHER—Marysue Rucci Books (Simon & Schuster)

GENRE—literary speculative horror fiction

SETTING—mostly in San Diego, California with some flashbacks to Montreal, Quebec

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—mirrors, fairy tales (Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, & others), surface-level beauty, expensive skin care products, vanity, obsession with youth & immortality, the ocean, darkness & shadows, grief, dress shops & retail saleswork, mother-daughter relationship, roses, jellyfish, souls, word slips, secrets, a beauty cult, unreliable narrator, occult beauty practices, memory & disassociation, colorism, envy, inherited trauma & guilt, forgiveness, acceptance & redemption

WRITING STYLE—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

CHARACTERS—🌕🌕🌕🌗🌚

STORY/PLOT—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

BONUS ELEMENT/S—the interweaving of all the fairy tale themes and motifs was 😚👌🏻

PHILOSOPHY—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗

PREMISE—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

EXECUTION—🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

“I had seven different kinds of acid on rotation, each one for what Marva called a different ‘skin predicament’. I had the Universal Brightening Peel Pads and the Overnight Glycolic Resurfacing Matrix and of course, the triple-exfoliating Lotion Magique, a cult French elixir that's still illegal in some countries—the one with the banned ingredient that reeks of sulfur and numbs your face. I also had the infamous blood-colored Eradikating Ambrosia, which smells like turpentine and looks like fresh goat placenta. Each night I rub one or more on my face with a cotton pad, and my skin screams beautifully. Goes an unholy red. I watch it burn in the mirror while an animal scent, a smell of sacrifice, fills the bathroom like smoke.”

Summary:

“With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cultlike nature of the beauty industry as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze.”

My thoughts:

Unique, and unhinged, unsettling and utterly bold, Awad’s story of beauty and secrets, grief and obsession sucked me in like a rip tide. With less than 40 pages left in the book I thought no *way* could this story have anything close to a satisfying ending. The chaos and disorientation, the weirdness and seeming total disintegration of the MC’s entire world and agency seemed so far gone that I just could not see a way that Awad could bring it all back together. Whew was I wrong!

I could definitely see this book not being for everyone as it really pushes the boundaries of speculative literary fiction but I loved it. It definitely even had some Helen Oyeyemi vibes going on a little (reminded me some of BOY, SNOW, BIRD in fact at times). Easily a top read of the year for me.

“Well, Beauty can be scary sometimes, it can take your breath away.”

I would recommend this book to readers who can handle some seriously intense speculative horror and bizarre plot arc developments. This is a big “trust the author” type read. 😅 This book is best read seaside.

Final note: It’s definitely not weird that the MC’s name was the name I used in my highschool French class and I’ve never come across it anywhere else before, right? Like on top of my relating *a lot* to the MC for other deeply personal, uncomfortable reasons? 🤪🫠😅

“‘Red like roses. Red like blood. Red like the algae she steals from the Deep to make her look young and beautiful forever. But it won't save her in the end.’ ‘It won’t? Why not?’ ‘Nothing saves us in the end,’ Tom said, stroking my hair. ‘Not gods or shadow gods. Not heaven or the endless Deep. Not blood or cream red as blood. Rouge, as they say.’”

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕

Season: Summer

CW // grief, suicide, death of a parent, grooming, colorism, body horror (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—