Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Rouge by Mona Awad

115 reviews

katie0528's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

3.5

After the death of her mother, Mirabelle flies to California to settle her estate. But almost immediately, strange things began to happen. People describe Mira's mother in ways that is totally unrecognizable to her, and Mira, who has always found herself obsessing over her skincare, finds herself drawn over and over again to a bizzare spa with dubious treatments that leave her memories fuzzy.

The book was solid overall, I'm just not a huge horror fan. But this could be a great pick for someone searching for a female, POC-led thriller!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Racism, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Compulsive behavior, delusions

anneliseew's review

dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Mental illness, Racism, Suicide, Death of parent, and Alcohol

studydniowka's review

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

I really liked how Awad depicted how perilous is the beauty community. I would like to see a movie like this.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death and Death of parent

kirstenw13's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Violence, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Dysphoria

pinkalpaca's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Fatphobia, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Dysphoria

maziodynes's review

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Read this one for book club!

I really enjoyed Ms. Awad's writing style paired with her unreliable narrator. This was a surreal story centering around a mixed race woman and her relationship to her white mother and the beauty industry. Over the course of the book, it spirals down into a warning of a metaphor about grief and owning our traumas to heal (rather than escape)

Belle has this ritualistic obsession with skincare and a society that fetishizes differences while trying to sell a fantasy of being perfect and uniform (young, beautiful, white) even though this is impossible. The cult in this book preys on people like her by GIVING them the fantasy - however, to do this, they

take away something that makes us who we are, that makes us human. They say this is what makes you "ugly."

I absolutely loved this concept and thought it was executed well. The ending was beautiful.

My biggest complain was the pacing. Her writing style is so good, so readable, there were just too many words for the story she wanted to tell. It could have been more concise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming and Death of parent

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Racism, Sexism, and Grief

yilliun's review

dark mysterious 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

3.0

Awad is known for her “weird” stories that have the reader questioning what’s real and what’s imagined. This book definitely fits into that description.

The deeper Belle got into Rouge, the harder I found the storyline to follow. I just felt confused about the last quarter of the book. I was also expecting the body horror to be a bit more explicitly gross, but it was more of a mind trip than anything else.

I did think it was an overall okay commentary on the beauty/ skincare industry. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief and Death of parent

Moderate: Body horror, Body shaming, and Racism

abicaro17's review

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

meg_thebrave's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Gore, Self harm, Suicide, Gaslighting, and Dysphoria

carojust's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I've fallen deep for Mona Awad's writing. Darkly funny, beautiful, masterful. I'm still trying to absorb what I've just read, through stupefied tears.

"Rouge" is much more than horror, or magical realism, even absurdism. This is a reflective, heartbreaking story about a daughter and mother, a metaphorical lens on grief and childhood trauma. It's wrapped in something familiar to us, borrowing every reference from Grimms fairytales, and is just as disturbing as the originals. 

For me, this book has an exciting start, a more dense and repetitive middle, and the most perfect ending chapters I've ever read. Chapter 30, specifically, is creative and emotional genius, and I'll never forget about it. 

Without giving too much away, the Tom Cruise reference is incredible in giving the exact visual we didn't know we needed, the smiling mask covering something else. 

Please give this a read if you need another mother-daughter story to heal from, like dark twisting plots, unreliable narrators, and have survived the YouTube Beauty world. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Alcohol