sunny thoughts | Rouge

Rouge

Mona Awad

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From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother's unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death.

The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted.

There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze.

Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.

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Death by TBR Books\ \ Stephanie\ \ • Apr 27

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I shared a post on Instagram recently but wanted to give even more book recs on here for Pocahontas characters and the reasons I chose each one. \ \ THOMAS \ \ The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling & Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid\ \ Both stories center control, repression, and systems that look orderly on the surface but are quietly rotting underneath. That tension between logic and something deeply wrong mirrors Thomas perfectly.\ \ KOCOUM\ \ Never Whistle at Night: Back for Blood & Bad Cree by Jessica Johns\ \ These both ground horror in ancestry, land, and generational memory. Together, they reflect Kocoum’s connection to community and the idea that the past is never truly separate from the present.\ \ JOHN \ \ The Hacienda by Isabel Canas & The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell\ \ Both books trap their characters in controlled, domestic spaces that slowly turn hostile. That loss of authority in the face of something supernatural lines up with John’s need for certainty.\ \ RATCLIFFE \ \ Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin & The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson\ \ These are both brutal, society-breaking narratives where survival requires adaptation to constant violence. They match Ratcliffe’s world, where chaos isn’t an anomaly, it’s the baseline.\ \ FLIT \ \ Maeve Fly by CJ Leede & A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers\ \ Both lean into indulgence, performance, and female rage with a sharp, self-aware edge. That mix of chaos and control fits Flit’s unpredictable, almost theatrical energy.\ \ MEEKO \ \ Nothing Tastes As Good by Luke Dumas & Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson\ \ These stories start soft and intimate before shifting into obsession and transformation. That progression mirrors Meeko’s curiosity and loyalty evolving into something more complicated.\ \ PERCY \ \ Diavola by Jennifer Thorne + Rouge by Mona Awad\ \ Both focus on vanity, image, and identity unraveling under pressure. They reflect Percy’s arc from surface-level entitlement to a more self-aware, fractured perspective.\ \ POCAHONTAS \ \ White Horse by Erika T. Wurth + Shutter by Ramona Emerson\ \ These both center cultural memory, spiritual responsibility, and connection to land. Together, they align with Pocahontas’s role as someone who carries history rather than escapes it.\ \ I'm definitely going to do more of these types of posts. Everyone has their own niche on Instagram and I think since I love watching and reading so much it's a great way to combine the two. Also, the books for each character are readalikes so generally if you like one you'll like the other.\ \ Upgrade for $5 or login

Book Recs for Pocahontas Characters

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Bookwyrm Ink\ \ Bookwyrm Ink\ \ • May 24 2025

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Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Jul 8 2024

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will need approximately 3-5 business days to recover !!! #monaawad #powells #bookstagram

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Mood Reads\ \ Hannah\ \ • Apr 23 2024

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Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Apr 9 2024

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fiction book recs for the girlies with mommy issues 👩🏾🤰🏾👵🏾

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Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Jan 2 2024

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every book i read in 2023 reviewed in one sentence 📚

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sunny thoughts\ \ Sunny\ \ • Dec 22 2023

Reading wrap up fall-winter: fiction books part 1

catching you up on all the (fiction) books I've read in the last few months!! Including some lesbian classics, fantasies, a romance novel, and feminist historical fiction.

Hirbawi: https://www.kufiya.org

Timestamps 0:00 - 01:20 intro 01:20 - 05:10 Royal Assassin, Robin Hobb 05:10 - 06:01 Assassin's Quest Robin Hobb 06:01- 07:53 Rouge, Mona Awad 07:53 - 12:35 Kings of the Wyld (The Band, #1), Nicholas Eames 12:35 - 16:01 star-rating catch up 16:01 - 16:40 Bloody Rose (The Band, #2), Nicholas Eames 16:40 - 17:07 beauty break 17:07 - 20:57 kufiyah 20:57 - 26:06 The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff 26:06 - 30:05 The Unreal and the Real vol 2, Ursula le Guin27:01 The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, Gertrude Stein 30:05 - 30:47 City of Incurable Women, Maud Casey 30:47 - 33:55 Liarmouth, John Waters 33:55 - 34:47 Galatea, Madeline Miller 34:47 - 37:36 Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, Ashley Herring Blake 37:36 - 38:01 Where the Wild Ladies Are, Aoko Matsuda 38:01 - 39:28 Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf 39:28 - 41:42 The Dead Take The A Train, Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey

Find me: Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/asunnybooknook (I don't update my Storygraph profile, sorry!! only upload my goodreads data there once a year for data purposes :( too hard to keep up with 2 tracking apps and I'm more familiar with Goodreads at this point) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/asunnybooknook My Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sunnyinstlouis/ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/asunnybooknook Business contact - asunnybooknook @ gmail dot com

🍑🍊🕊🌸🍓🍒🍇 Listen to me and my best friend's lesbian comedy media & pop culture commentary podcast, The Lavender Menace! Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6KoWHeYT8M0svZhvTsOUgt?si=LzGU-55zSOmbanf7-vlTMg&dl\_branch=1 Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/agmaoiRQRy?amp=1 Patreon, for exclusive bonus episodes & early access: https://www.patreon.com/TheLavenderMenace

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sunny thoughts\ \ Sunny\ \ • Dec 9 2023

very belatedly reacting to the Goodreads Choice Award nominations & winners of 2023

back from my hiatus! To comment and bitch about the people's reading taste of course.

🍉🕊️🫒 donation info: Please DO NOT mention PaIestine in your donation. VENMO: @three-dee or @Lina-Shahid PAYPAL: @deesturbance ZELLE: 720-240-1108

last year's vid: https://youtu.be/VBSOGbDJloM?si=XSDL\_LNyMF2sMoSf

Find me: Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/asunnybooknook (I don't update my Storygraph profile, sorry!! only upload my goodreads data there once a year for data purposes :( too hard to keep up with 2 tracking apps and I'm more familiar with Goodreads at this point) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sunnyboxhouse My Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sunnyinstlouis/ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/asunnybooknook Business contact - asunnybooknook @ gmail dot com

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Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Nov 13 2023

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Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Oct 18 2023

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The Inky Phoenix\ \ Kathryn Budig\ \ • Oct 10 2023

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My Current TBR Pile

What’s next? My current TBR pile:

ROUGE by @misss_read THE FRAUD by Zadie Smith THE HOUSE OF DOORS by @tan.twan.eng STARLING HOUSE by @alix.e.harrow BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN by @jessicaknollauthor

Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Sep 11 2023

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the 40+ books on my fall TBR 🍁🍂 fall book recommendations ☕️

tell me your fall book recommendations in the comments! 🍁🍂

🎃 books mentioned 🎃

Misc. ↳ rouge ↳ she walks in shadows ↳ silver nitrate

Dark Academia ↳ in these hallowed halls: a dark academia anthology ↳ vita nostra ↳ plain bad heroines

“Classic” horror ↳ rebecca ↳ interview with a vampire ↳ dark tales

Real World Horror ↳ natural beauty ↳ lakewood ↳ her body and other parties ↳ bad cree ↳ weight of blood

Vampires ↳ vampires of el norte ↳ a dowry of blood ↳ masters of death ↳ house of hunger ↳ the book eaters

Haunted House books ↳ a house with good bones ↳ she is a haunting ↳ the hacienda ↳ just like home

Deathly Retellings ↳ a haunting on the hill ↳ the death i gave him ↳ one for my enemy

Cozy fantasies ↳ legends & lattes ↳ the very secret society of irregular witches ↳ venco ↳ emily wilde's encyclopaedia of faeries

Fantasies ↳ nettle & bone ↳ gods of jade and shadow ↳ juniper & thorn ↳the wolf & the woodsman ↳ the bone orchard ↳ the adventures of amina al-sirafi

Other ↳ my dark vanessa ↳ station eleven ↳ glass hotel ↳ sea of tranquility

socials 🤍 instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisstoryaintover/ 🤍 twitter: https://twitter.com/jananiekvelu 🤍 tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisstoryaintover?lang=en 🤍 storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/thisstoryaintover 🤍 goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/thisstoryaintover

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faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nuh-nee (like a knee!)

🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!

🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!

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sunny thoughts\ \ Sunny\ \ • Jul 11 2023

mid-year book freakout tag

checking in on my 2023 reading with the classic Booktube tag! featuring bookshop.org #sponsored for Anti-Prime day. Get free shipping today on July 12th and a tote bag if you spend over $100, all while supporting independent bookstores!! Also, I forgot to answer Kayla’s second tag question but here are my Booktube faves: @mynameismarines for her critical reviews of booktok darlings, @caricanread for her wholistic vlogs and recaps of things I will never read, and @rinceyreads for her thoughtful reviews.

(another disclaimer-- I meant to get this video up yesterday but like it's fine! lol)

My letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/sunnyinstlouis/

Find me: Goodreads - https://www.goodreads.com/asunnybooknook (I don't update my Storygraph profile, sorry!! only upload my goodreads data there once a year for data purposes :( too hard to keep up with 2 tracking apps and I'm more familiar with Goodreads at this point) Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sunnyboxhouse Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/asunnybooknook Business contact - asunnybooknook@gmail.com

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