Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Rouge

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Rouge by Mona Awad

8 reviews

ariep's review

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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linneak's review against another edition

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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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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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