5 must-read magical realism books like Rouge by Mona Awad

Cover of Rouge by Mona Awad

Rouge

By: Mona Awad

3.56

Format: 383 pages, Kindle Edition

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lone…

"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

If you liked the magical realism plot in Rouge by Mona Awad , here is a list of 5 books like this:

Cover of Perfume & Pain by Anna  Dorn

1. Perfume & Pain

By: Anna Dorn

4.06

Format: 352 pages, Paperback

A controversial Los Angeles author attempts to revive her career and finally find true love in this… read more

Similar categories in Anna Dorn's Perfume & Pain book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"I sit down wanting to write the great lesbian love story, but wacko bitches just keep coming out."

-Anna Dorn, Perfume & Pain

Cover of Rouge by Mona Awad

2. Rouge

By: Mona Awad

3.56

Format: 383 pages, Kindle Edition

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lone… read more

Similar categories in Mona Awad's Rouge book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • gothic
  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • horror
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"That I can’t protect you from my terrible places that I still go, can’t help but go because no one protected me, no one saved me, no one ever held out their hand and walked me away. But I’m trying to…"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

Cover of My Husband by Maud Ventura

3. My Husband

By: Maud Ventura

3.68

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

In this suspenseful and darkly funny debut novel, a sophisticated French woman spends her life obse… read more

Similar categories in Maud Ventura's My Husband book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • audiobook
"When it comes to love, I’ve learned nothing: I love too intensely and I’m consumed by my own love (analysis, jealousy, doubt)—so much that when I’m in love, I always end up slightly extinguished and …"

-Maud Ventura, My Husband

Cover of Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4. Monstrilio

By: Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4.14

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

A literary horror debut about a boy who transforms into a monster, a monster who tries to be a man,… read more

Similar categories in Gerardo Sámano Córdova's Monstrilio book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
"The world was scary. Worse, I was scary in it."

-Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio

"I wanted him to snap, to finally and absolutely lose it. To break. He was withering. To wither is not the same as to break; to break is to have pieces to put back together, and to wither is to dry up…"

-Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Monstrilio

Cover of The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

5. The Familiar

By: Leigh Bardugo

3.84

Format: 387 pages, Hardcover

From the New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House, Hell Bent, and creator of the Grishavers… read more

Similar categories in Leigh Bardugo's The Familiar book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • magical realism
  • fiction
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
"But let it be my ambition and not my fear that seals my fate."

-Leigh Bardugo, The Familiar

"There was nothing more dangerous than a woman witha pen in her hand."

-Leigh Bardugo, The Familiar

"She was allowed to want more for herself. And even if she wasn't, she would find a way to get it."

-Leigh Bardugo, The Familiar

"And you're not afraid...of the devil? Of his minions? "Fear men, Luzia," he said. "Fear their ambition and the crimes they commit in its service. But don't fear magic or what you may do with it."

-Leigh Bardugo, The Familiar

Cover of Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne

6. Diavola

By: Jennifer Marie Thorne

3.95

Format: 296 pages, Kindle Edition

Jennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothi… read more

Similar categories in Jennifer Marie Thorne's Diavola book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • gothic
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Black Sheep by Rachel   Harrison

7. Black Sheep

By: Rachel Harrison

3.60

Format: 289 pages, Hardcover

A cynical twentysomething must confront her unconventional family’s dark secrets in this fiery, irr… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Harrison's Black Sheep book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
"How can anyone know when ruin wears the disguise of love?"

-Rachel Harrison, Black Sheep

"I hoped wherever she was, she was having a shitty time, had an itch in a place she couldn't scratch."

-Rachel Harrison, Black Sheep

Cover of Penance by Eliza  Clark

8. Penance

By: Eliza Clark

3.90

Format: 336 pages, ebook

Do you know what happened already? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did you li… read more

Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Penance book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Do you know what happened to her already? Did you catch it in the papers? Are you local? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did some website the trawls local news for the worst details…"

-Eliza Clark, Penance

Cover of Worry by Alexandra  Tanner

9. Worry

By: Alexandra Tanner

3.36

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

Frances Ha meets No One Is Talking About This in a debut that follows two twenty-something siblings… read more

Similar categories in Alexandra Tanner's Worry book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Chlorine by Jade Song

10. Chlorine

By: Jade Song

3.72

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between… read more

Similar categories in Jade Song's Chlorine book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
"Nearly every human memory is corrupted by the fact that it is a memory of being human"

-Jade Song, Chlorine

"Would a mermaid who stays at home, much-loved, with two beautiful parents and loving sisters who share everything, be worth memorializing? No."

-Jade Song, Chlorine

"Humans break so easily. They break their bones, their bodies, their hearts. I, too, as a girl, once broke. My head. And when this happened, I, like many other humans, did not allow myself the time an…"

-Jade Song, Chlorine

Cover of Death Valley by Melissa Broder

11. Death Valley

By: Melissa Broder

3.49

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has… read more

Similar categories in Melissa Broder's Death Valley book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
"My body is the real problem here. If I could be bodiless - or at least, senseless - I’d be better off."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"This is the problem with human relationships: you come to a person with one feeling and they’re having another."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"I am going to die out here. I might. I could. Die. All this time I should have been practising for dying. What was I doing instead? Reading reviews for sweatpants."

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

"Stop placing so much value on the known, I tell myself. Fake like this is the hero’s journey. It’s good to get lost. Good for the soul. But how lost is the good amount of lost? If I die here, is that…"

-Melissa Broder, Death Valley

Cover of The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

12. The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

By: Amanda Montell

3.54

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blen… read more

Similar categories in Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • adult
  • audiobook
"While magical thinking is an age-old quirk, overthinking feels distinct to the modern era—a product of our innate superstitions clashing with information overload, mass loneliness, and a capitalistic…"

-Amanda Montell, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

"Information transmission research suggests that folks with higher anxiety are quicker to engage with, and slower to disengage from, negative information; so "as a trait and state," anxiety itself per…"

-Amanda Montell, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

Cover of Brutes by Dizz Tate

13. Brutes

By: Dizz Tate

3.18

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

The Virgin Suicides meets The Florida Project in this wildly original debut—a coming-of-age story a… read more

Similar categories in Dizz Tate's Brutes book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • audiobook
"to be loved, was just to be watched"

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"We feel chased. It doesn't matter if it's only by our own shadows."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"and now I think that to humiliate a woman is the only way some men know how to love one."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

"To be loved was just to be watched, or in my case, to imagine you are loved is to imagine you are watched all the time."

-Dizz Tate, Brutes

Cover of Piglet by Lottie Hazell

14. Piglet

By: Lottie Hazell

3.47

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

An elegant, razor-sharp debut about women's ambitions and appetites—and the truth about having it a… read more

Similar categories in Lottie Hazell's Piglet book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"She picked up salted butter, thick Greek yoghurt, and cream. The menu was not modest. Her basket was already heavy with Charlotte potatoes, fresh herbs, and a Duchy chicken. It was too hot for a roas…"

-Lottie Hazell, Piglet

"She picked up salted butter, thick Greek yoghurt, and cream. The menu was not modest. Her basket was already heavy with Charlotte potatoes, fresh herbs, and a Duchy chicken. It was too hot for a roas…"

-Lottie Hazell, Piglet

"She opened the capers, green and freckled as amphibians, and with a teaspoon eased them from their brine. The olives were next, and she pushed pits from the aubergine-dark fruits, dropping their fles…"

-Lottie Hazell, Piglet

"On the platter before her there was a bowl of beef bourguignon, the sauce dark with merlot; the corner of dauphinoise potatoes, gruyère-crusted top browned, bubbled with heat; there was a small plate…"

-Lottie Hazell, Piglet

Cover of Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

15. Big Swiss

By: Jen Beagin

3.68

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is … read more

Similar categories in Jen Beagin's Big Swiss book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"¿Habla más de un idioma?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"You bullied other bullies,"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"she’d always been less of a shit-talker and more of a shit-thinker"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"At least I know where the hell I am and what’s happening. Which way is north?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

Cover of Fruit of the Dead by Rachel  Lyon

16. Fruit of the Dead

By: Rachel Lyon

3.54

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

An electric contemporary reimagining of the myth of Persephone and Demeter set over the course of o… read more

Similar categories in Rachel Lyon's Fruit of the Dead book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • fantasy
Cover of Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

17. Horror Movie

By: Paul Tremblay

3.45

Format: 277 pages, Hardcover

A chilling twist on the “cursed film” genre from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club and… read more

Similar categories in Paul Tremblay's Horror Movie book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • audiobook
Cover of Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

18. Ripe

By: Sarah Rose Etter

3.63

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley startup, Cassie finds herself trapped in a … read more

Similar categories in Sarah Rose Etter's Ripe book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • magical realism
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
"The open office floor plan is a form of strangulation."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"Maybe there must always be two of us—our real selves and the ones we create to survive in the world as it is."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"When you're young, every part of life seems big and monumental. Once older you can see it for what it is: smaller pieces of a larger game you have no choice but to play."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"If the brain is elastic and memory is faulty, maybe all of these stories are wrong. Maybe it happened a different way altogether. Maybe I was happy and I just forget that now."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

Cover of Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

19. Natural Beauty

By: Ling Ling Huang

3.80

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obs… read more

Similar categories in Ling Ling Huang's Natural Beauty book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • audiobook
"it is still more permitted for women to be mediocre than for them to be fat"

-Ling Ling Huang, Natural Beauty

"It’s unfortunate that I can undermine months of parental reassurance in just a few seconds, but it’s probably better for kids to learn early on that yes, monsters are real."

-Ling Ling Huang, Natural Beauty

"I had always assumed love carried itself easily through various permutations and disintegrations. Now I find myself disassociating them from the people I had known my parents to be. I can't decide wh…"

-Ling Ling Huang, Natural Beauty

Cover of Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

20. Annie Bot

By: Sierra Greer

3.83

Format: 231 pages, Hardcover

Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner, Doug. Designed to satisfy h… read more

Similar categories in Sierra Greer's Annie Bot book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • fantasy
  • audiobook
Cover of The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim

21. The Eyes Are the Best Part

By: Monika Kim

3.89

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

“Violent, smart, gruesome and wildly original, this novel pulls readers into a horrific world of mu… read more

Similar categories in Monika Kim's The Eyes Are the Best Part book and Mona Awad's Rouge

  • fiction
  • horror
  • contemporary
  • thriller
  • adult
  • audiobook

20 best-selling fiction books like Rouge by Mona Awad

Transform Your Habits

Perfume & Pain

Anna Dorn

4.06

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

My Husband

Maud Ventura

3.68

Transform Your Habits

Monstrilio

Gerardo Sámano Córdova

4.14

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21 must-read fiction books like Worry by Alexandra Tanner

Transform Your Habits

Perfume & Pain

Anna Dorn

4.06

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Margo's Got Money Troubles

Rufi Thorpe

3.97

Transform Your Habits

Beautyland

Marie-Helene Bertino

4.15

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