Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Rouge by Mona Awad

32 reviews

imagemaps's review

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Seth being Set and in Egyptian mythology makes so much sense especially because his enemy is Horus, and Belle wears the eye of Horus. 

I wonder if Noelle knew about Seth and if “Tom Cruise” was just Belle trying to make the abuse better for herself

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Death of parent

grrrcait's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Body horror, and Death of parent

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Animal death

cara_anne's review

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Toxic friendship, Gore, and Death of parent

There’s a veiled, magical realism metaphor for child sexual abuse that becomes more and more clear as the theme continues.

dehahs's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Blood, Pedophilia, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Body shaming

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Islamophobia, and Sexual content

danimacuk's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Abandonment, Gore, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Sexual content, Bullying, Cursing, Racism, Alcohol, and Cultural appropriation

elizabeth_lepore's review

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Racism, and Body shaming

withlivjones's review

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Oh. My. God. I haven’t read a book as good as this in a long time. Awad takes the best parts of all her previous novels and combines them in this book. Beautiful prose writing that makes you feel like you’re losing your mind just like the protagonist, and a really emotional discussion of grief and mother-daughter relationships that left me in bits. This book will live rent-free in my head for a long time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, and Grief

Moderate: Racism

othersociologist's review

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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Death of parent

Minor: Suicide

neverfarfromthesea's review

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

A fever dream of deliriously surreal elements and a fun satire of the beauty industry. I just wished the ‘Tom Cruise’ bits hadn’t made the final edit. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

Grooming

aliyachaudhry's review

dark emotional funny mysterious sad 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

need to read mona awad's review of top gun: maverick

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Bullying, Blood, Body shaming, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Racism