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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).
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,
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,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Grief, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Classism
Minor: Body shaming
aimsro's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
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? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol