Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-arc of Rouge. In classic Mona Awad fashion, this is a strange tale of horrific proportions.

🥀R O U G E 🥀

WE LOVED THIS BOOK BUNNY!! 🖤

This book has all the signature ✨chaos✨ of a classic Mona Awad book, but what I didn’t expect was how emotional it made me.

In the era of 💖Barbie💖and What Was I Made For, this book fits right in. I loved the commentary on the beauty industry and the how Mona poses it in a way that makes you say “wow yes this IS all insane isn’t it? Why do we do this to ourselves?”

What we loved:

♥️ CULTS!!!!!
♥️beautiful, savage, chaotic descriptions
♥️Emotional moments! I (Tori) cried during a part at the end and I truly did not expect that.

I think that this book has the clearest, most cohesive theme out of all of Mona Awad’s books. This book is murderous… I mean, marvellous (IYKYK) ☠️

I had high hopes for this book after reading Bunny, and Mona Awad does not disappoint. A dark fairytale about a daughter grappling with her mother's death, as well as a commentary on the beauty industry and the way it preys on women, feeding on the fears and insecurities the world piles on.
The story is compellingly told, delving deeper into weirdness as it moves through Mira's journey to pack up her mother's apartment and pick up the pieces of her own life at the same time. I love the imagery, and I really enjoy Awad's storytelling techniques. The strangeness of the narrative is never sneered at or side eyed; instead, even when Mira recognizes that things are not what they seem or that something is wrong, you never get the impression that Awad is taking any of these wild plot points anything less than seriously.
As in Bunny, things start to get seriously strange by the end, but there are moments of dreamlike wtfery throughout. I greatly enjoyed the study of the relationships between mothers and daughters, and there are so many really poignant and provocative sentences. If you enjoyed Bunny, I think this book will appeal as well.

This one didn't quite land for me the way Mona Awad's other books have. It seems to follow the same formula; woman wants something she can't attain, magical things happen to intervene, then she gets more than she bargained for. The writing is still superior as always and the message about beauty and whiteness is well told but I found it a little repetitive and I wasn't as pulled in as I had hoped - still a solid read.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

I’m under the impression this woman CANNOT write a bad book. This was amazing! It is a horror retelling of “beauty & the beast” focusing on impossible beauty standards, and how they’re passed down from the women before us. It’s a dark, trippy, story of a woman who loses her mother, and spirals into this mania in search of youth and beauty. It reads like a fever dream. I highly recommend!

Incredible!

Rouge by Mona Awad is a brilliant and sensual, enthralling, gothic fever dream composed of vivid and compelling descriptions and imagery.

I could not, and did not want, to put this rich, atmospheric, genre-defying book down! The iconic imagery, fairytale themes, attack on the ruthless beauty industry and powerful, emotional ride, including elements of abandonment, grief, jealousy, desire, loss and intergenerational trauma make this one stellar read!

You don't want to miss this dark gem!

"I dream of massacres
I am a garden of red and black agonies."

—Sylvia Plath from "Three Women"

classic Mona Awad in that I was deeply confused and also deeply entranced. She is really doing something else... the book was losing me at times, but maybe that can be more attributed to my lack of focus than on her.

Even though this was WEIRD, I thought the story was great. But it just felt too slow for me, I kept hitting parts where I was wishing I could skip ahead to get answers. The weirdness definitely kept me interested and wanting to know more though, I just wish there were less parts that felt like they didn't add much to the story, and more parts that gave explanations as to what the hell was going on.

Still good though.

This is the first book I’ve read by Mona Awad though I’ve heard a lot about her other book ‘Bunny’. After reading the first few chapters of Rouge, I knew that this book was going to feel like a dream. This book captures society’s obsession of the outward appearance and the lengths people will go to keep their youthful face. It’s a dark and twisted tale that shows the consequences of this obsession.

Belle, a troubled woman, has journeyed to California after the loss of her mother. As she deals with the mysterious death of her mother, she becomes connected with a spa that her mother went to in her last days. Belle, like her mother, has become focused with beauty products and her reflection in the mirror. As Belle goes through her journey of grief at her mothers passing, she starts to unravel her childhood past.

While this is a tale combines many genres such as horror and fairy tale, the relationship between mother and daughter becomes a central theme in this book. It shows how the insecurities of parents can be passed to their children. It shows a young mother maturing alongside her own daughter. And it shows how we can become so focused on ourselves, that our relationships with others are impacted.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Hamish Hamilton for the advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

I thought Bunny was a drug trip 😂 This is on a whole other level. The prose style is incredibly interesting, but makes it hard to get through. I had to read about a chapter at a time, maybe a bit more, then put it down for the day and give my mind a break. The subject matter is poignant and compelling. However, I wanted to like it more than I did (since Bunny was so crazy), but the prose makes it difficult. Where Bunny was a drug trip, this was a bizarre dream. I enjoyed the black, red, white imagery. But again, I found myself putting it down and getting bored at times because the writing was so heavy and oppressive. I hope Awad’s next book is more like Bunny.

Probably my least favorite out of the three Awad books I’ve read (this one, BUNNY and ALL’S WELL). Even though I enjoyed it overall, I thought the main character was underdeveloped, which made the whole thing a little one-note—especially when compared to the other two books which had such strong main characters.

Also, and I don’t know if this is me nitpicking, but there were a lot of spelling mistakes in the French dialogue. Usually, I don’t really care about that stuff. But here, most of the characters speaking the language were supposed to be fluent or native, which made the mistakes really hard to overlook. For instance, everywhere "entrée" is used, it should be "entrez". Same for "cher"—should’ve been "chère" everytime her Quebec-born, French-speaking grandmother called her that. A simple proofread by a French speaker would’ve solved this issue (I don’t really understand why that didn’t happen?).

But anyway, I would still recommend this novel to anyone who enjoyed Awad’s previous work. It was personally my least favorite of her novels, but that’s just me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the advance copy of this book.

<b>Beauty Products Addiction</b>
<i>Review of the NetGalley Kindle ARC eBook obtained in advance of the official Penguin Random House Canada release (September 12, 2023)</i>

<blockquote><i>This morning, I applied three layers of an antioxidant serum enriched with Firma-Cell, followed by seven skins of a roaring water kelp essence, followed by the IsoPlacenta Shield to smooth and tighten. Then the White Pearl Pigment Perfector mixed with the Brightening Caviar for Radiance. Then of course the Diamond-Infused Revitalizing Eye Formula, the Superdefense Multi-Correxion Moisturizing Cloud Jelly, and two layers of broad spectrum Glowscreen, physical and chemical.</i></blockquote>

I was curious to read this latest novel by Montreal-born writer Mona Awad who has been previously shortlisted for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize, for “13 Ways…” (2016). Its promo synopsis promised a “horror-tinted gothic fairy tale.” It does live up to that advertising, but I have to confess it was the extended passages of beauty product applications (one example of several is quoted above) which horrified me more than the secret cult into which the main character is ensnared. That is likely an indication that this sort of surreal fantasy was not for me.

Mirabelle is drawn back to California from Montreal, Canada after the death of her mother Noelle. She discovers that her mother had gone into serious debt while becoming addicted to beauty treatments at a secretive spa. Belle finds herself drawn to the cult which seems to work on sort of a Dorian Gray principle: a person’s aging is somehow drawn off into a white amorphous jellyfish creature which enlarges and grows red in the process. In its final state, the succubi-like inhabitants of the spa indulge in a ritual which leaves the original person drained. Will Belle manage to free herself from the cult before it is too late.

While this sort of beauty treatment addiction and obsession is not really my genre I was intrigued enough to read this to its satisfying conclusion. Fans of the genre will likely enjoy it more than I could appreciate.

I read this Advance Reading Copy of <i>Rouge</i> in eBook format thanks to the publisher Penguin Random House Canada and the Net Galley website in exchange for which I provide this honest review.

<b>Trivia and Links</b>
There is a Q&A with author Mona Awad at <a href=”https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thenextchapter/mona-awads-rouge-explores-mother-daughter-relationships-1.6959780”>Mona Awad explores the complexity of mother-daughter relationships in new novel</a> for The Next Chapter, CBC Radio, September 8, 2023.

This book was a whirlwind of confusing, eccentric, and meaningful moments. Literary horror, magical realism, and strong commentary on today’s beauty industry as well as the pressure passed down by generations. Mona Awad made this story come to life visually which is all I ever ask with magical realism. I could read this book for hours on end.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first Mona Awad novel and wow. What a disturbing exploration of the beauty industry and mother/daughter relationships. I particularly enjoyed the use of incorrect words (“i leaned in and killed it”). It was completely disconcerting; like the eeriest soundtrack as we watched her unravel. Big fan! I’m going to need to avoid jellyfish after that scene.

4.5 stars - This isn't only a book on the beauty industry, this is a book about womanhood and motherhood written in a way that only Mona Awad could achieve. Despite crying through the final 20 pages of the book, the story was just missing a certain je ne sais quoi that I needed to give it the full 5 stars.

Simply put, just too slow & repetitive for me. I found no attachment to Mirabelle and struggled to find interest in her journey.

I had to drag myself through this, which was the complete opposite reading experience that i had with Bunny. I could not put Bunny down no matter how late it got, I flew through it and was upset it was over, with Rouge though, I was dreading picking it back up, knowing it would be a slow and painful experience.

Despite pacing issues, Awad’s writing is cinematic as ever in this one, and reading it feels like it would be directed by Xavier Dolan (the dark, québécois feel of it definitely adds to this though)

Each chapter was drenched in anxiety, I quite literally could feel it personally as I read, I was just missing that connection to the characters to enjoy the twisty and anxious thrill, instead I just felt anxious reading in a not so fun way.

Rouge would have benefited from a shorter length, I really could see this thriving as a ~200 page novel or less.

I may give this another shot in a few months, but in print version next time. Completely unrelated to the quality of the novel but the formatting of this ARC was a nightmare to read and definitely didn’t help the reading experience.

Rouge is the first book by Mona Awad that I've read and I was very impressed by this at times almost psychodelic and comical deconstruction of beauty industry and how our internalised misogyny and racism can affect the way we view the people around us.

The book also delves into the complex mother-daughter dynamic, which I found particularly intriguing. Belle's perspective provides a one-sided view of her relationship with her mother. However, as the story unfolds and unveils its final revelations, it becomes evident that the breakdown of their relationship is more nuanced. While by no means an attempt to defend Noelle's character, she is undeniably flawed and far from the perfect mother. Belle interprets her mother's reluctance to share her skincare secrets and routines as a form of rejection. But beneath the surface, it could be seen as Noelle's attempt to shield her daughter from the beauty industry's snares. Noelle reassures Belle that she doesn't need any of it, that her skin is perfect. Yet, Belle's formative years were spent observing her mother's adherence to these rituals, which have now become part of the elusive ideal Belle tirelessly pursues. The pressure to maintain an eternally youthful, untouched, and whitewashed appearance is omnipresent. Simultaneously, Noelle grapples with her inability to guide her biracial daughter through the racially prejudiced society they inhabit, often exacerbating the situation. She places her own aspirations above her daughter's needs, leaving Belle feeling isolated and seeking connection in all the wrong places.

However, I couldn't help but feel that the character of Hud was somewhat superfluous. His role as an exposition delivery device could have been inferred from the narrative itself, and his indifference to Belle's consent in certain situations was deeply problematic. Nevertheless, his limited presence in the book did not diminish the overall experience for me. In the end, "Rouge" remains a compelling and worthwhile read.

2.5 Stars rounded up. In true Mona Awad style, this was a weird one! Similar to Bunny written by the same author, it's taken me a few days to even figure out how I wanted to rate it. The themes of beauty, youthfulness, death, and obsession were all very deeply rooted within every aspect of this disturbing story. It's meant to leave you with this low lying anxiety and uncomfortability with your own views or standards on beauty that perhaps would have affected me more had I been younger. I enjoyed the lyrical style of writing. Almost a stream of consciousness fever dream that leaves you wanting more. My problem with this novel was that there was too much. Too much going on, repetitive story lines, over explained messages. Cut 150 pages and perhaps I would have loved it. I found myself just wanting to move on and get to the ending already.

After reading Awad's Bunny, Rouge was pretty much what I expected it to be: a well-written wild ride. Like Bunny, it is a satirical look at cults (and, in addition, Rouge also satirizes the beauty industry). Also like Bunny we get interesting fairy tale vibes - a pair of ruby shoes, a magic mirror, red bottles held to pale faces ala Snow White's stepmother with the poison apple. (The color red is skillfully used in a way that makes it almost a character in itself.)

The idea of pale skin and blue eyes being somehow superior - in beauty - was interesting. It portrays the beauty industry in a Nazi sort of way. The fair-skinned mother is beautiful beyond words and her dark-skinned, dark-haired half Middle Eastern daughter feels inferior. How far will she go to look like that herself?

All in all I enjoyed this read. However, like Bunny again, there were parts I felt went a bit too far, but that's subjective. I would recommend it to anyone who loved Bunny.

This is the second novel I've picked up from Mona Awad. Both had a dreamy quality to them that I really liked.
Rouge is written so beautifully. It’s a seductive kind of beauty; you know something sinister is going to happen and yet it’s beautiful all the same. You can’t look away, you don’t want to; you just want to keep going. Lulled by the sensuous words.

The focus on beauty is all present and so disturbing. Beautiful on the outside but rotten on the inside. The protagonist's obsession with her skin is like watching someone reason away their addiction. The story follows a mother-daughter relationship that is so obviously broken. They both half want to be better, but they are also so self-centred. Their vanity is their whole world.

The story becomes weird and bizarre quickly. It’s a little hard to follow in the middle with the flashbacks because I don’t know what’s going on, but neither does our protagonist.

It feels a lot like a horrifying fever dream. I knew to expect horror, but the fantasy elements threw me off. We get a nice resolution and a sort of explanation at the end. More importantly, the message imparted through the story is so important. Vanity seems to be socially acceptable to the point of madness. The relationship between the protagonist and her mother is so deeply damaged by vanity and beauty standards and it ruins both their lives.

I enjoyed reading this novel. I'd recommend it to anyone like likes a little horror. It's very female centred.