What did I Just Read? - A commentary on weird girl fiction

I’m sure if you’re in the lit-fic world and you’re chronically online like I am, you would’ve heard the term “weird girl fiction”. How I interpret this term is that these are books that show the female experience in a way that’s somewhat odd and tries to depict feelings in a visual way. Some examples would be things like Bunny by Mona Awad or what we will be speaking about today, Rouge by Mona Awad.

Now let’s not get it twisted, I’m a weird girl who loves weird girl fiction.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation? Absolutely loved and that’s definitely a weird book. I even liked The Vegetarian by Han King and no one likes that.

However, recently I picked up Rouge by Mona Awad and was highly let down. Now I know this is criticism on the beauty industry and many other things but what on earth was that? I won’t bore you by adding in a synopsis of the book which you can simply look up on Goodreads.com .There were parts when you didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t and I can’t say I enjoyed it. It felt super “pick me”, as the kids would say. Awad wrote parts of this book just for the sake of being weird and I don’t think you need to make up random stuff about Tom Cruise in order to prove your point.

This is a much loved book in the lit fiction realm and I’m super glad for those who loved it but it missed its mark for me. Sure the writing was good and descriptive. It did get confusing at parts but that’s lowkey the point.

The book not only deals with beauty standards and the beauty industry but also grief and the confusing relationship between mother and daughter. Now those parts I can get behind. Love a story that makes me understand my own grief better and opens my eyes to how I am not alone in how I deal with things. I also read this directly after Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors which was a religious experience (review to come), which deals with grief in a different but somehow similar way.

I also didn’t really connect to the trashing of the beauty industry especially because I grew up with a mom who was heavily involved in the beauty industry and whom I greatly admire. The beauty industry certainly has its downfalls and I think at its core this book is deeply feminist. As a certified girls girl I can’t fault that. However, I think that there’s a way to make it too far. Often people believe that women (mostly), solely have beauty routines to impress people and forget that self love is so important. I don’t know about you, but I feel my best self when I’ve done some kind of beauty regime, even if its just putting on a SPF. I don’t do that for anyone, besides me and I think that’s where this book drew its downfall.

Maybe I just don’t “get it” but I still wanted to add in my two cents on whatever was going on here. I still can’t fault the quality of writing so I guess…3 stars? Anyways, someone convince me to read Bunny or some more weird girl books so that I can feel better about this.