Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - Sugar, Baby

Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclare

7 reviews

midnightmarauder's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative sad medium-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

4.0

Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclaire follows Agnes, a young woman in her early 20s who's trying to find herself. She feels stagnated in her life, as she's working a dead-end job as a maid for rich residents. The daughter of one of her clients, Emily, sees Agnes' disdain and offers her an alternative: sugaring.

Agnes grew up in a household where she was raised by her single mother, Constance, alongside her sister, Marlena, in a boring town Agnes calls "The Wasteland". Constance, a very religious woman, sheltered her daughters as much as possible and didn't really allow them much room to fly away from the nest. This caused Agnes to resent her and the life she had to live under her mother's watchful eye, which eventually lead her into sugaring.

Agnes' decision to go into sugaring was definitely something she did initially to spite her mother. After getting caught in a lie about her whereabouts,

Constance puts Agnes out

. She has nowhere to go other than Emily's apartment in London that she shares with shares with three other girls/sugar babies: Yomawu, Sara, and Kiki. There, she is able to continue her endeavors with no judgement. Eventually, she grew to somewhat enjoy it.

This book covered a lot of different themes. Aside from the theme of parental rebellion, another theme that was explored in the novel was how wanting a better life for yourself could lead you into destructive paths. At first, sugaring wasn't so bad to Agnes. She found one consistent person, Matthew, who she was able to explore with, alongside getting paid. But,

once that fell through

, finding someone else to fill that void took some more effort. The contrast between the amount of work it took for Agnes to make money from sugaring in comparison to her counterparts (i.e., Emily and the rest of the girls in the flat) was pretty big. Especially the amount of effort that her white counterparts (Emily and Sara) had to contribute. Sugaring also became stressful for Agnes when she eventually started to feel overwhelmed at being treated like a sexual object instead of a person (an aspect of sugaring that initially made her reluctant to try it).

Content Warnings

dionnesims's review

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emotional lighthearted reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

a fantastic debut novel. a Black sugar baby with religious trauma is such a great concept and it's pulled off with nuance and without shame. the writing style is one I had to warm up to, by now I can't wait to read anything else this author writes.

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josie2k's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious fast-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

4.0

Content Warnings

buer's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative lighthearted 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

5.0

Sugar, Baby is a poignant look at the highs and lows of "sugaring" or being a sugar baby told through the lens of a newbie to the trade: Agnes. When Emily is intrigued by Agnes' compulsive lying and beauty she plucks her out of her middle class life and introduces her to sugaring. What begins as free food and drinks, fancy lunches, and expensive gifts, quickly snowballs into increasingly sexual situations. Agnes quickly finds herself out of her depth, trying to figure out what her boundaries are and whether the price of sugaring is worth the payoff.

Celine Saintclaire is a great writer. Her prose is easy to read, snappy, and conversational. She easily explores the internal lives of a diverse set of girls who have all been drawn into sugaring for their own reasons. She paints complex characters who are lovable even when they're making horrible choices and highlights the romantic, beautiful aspects of sugaring before delving into its seedy underbelly. This is a perfectly paced book that does a great job of making the reader embody the emotions of the characters.

I would recommend this for people who like character-driven stories, sexy stuff, and a good old fashioned moral quandary.

Content Warnings