Wizard of Oz meets Beauty and the beast. Mirabelle's mother unexpectedly passes away and Mirabelle is required to travel to her mother's hometown. There she discovers a pair of red shoes and a mirror that her mother was obsessed with. With these red shoes and the mirror, she steps into her mother's world and experiences her mother's life. I struggled to connect with this story therefore didn't finish it at about half way.

This book was not for me….. there were some parts in the beginning and right near the end that were interesting and strange but a lot of the time I found myself bored and skimming through the pages. I found the spa scenes/ memories quite repetitive and wanting to put the book down. I wanted to love this one but I just couldn’t get there in the end. Unfortunately this was a 2 star read for me.

Unfortunately, this was not for me. I have a hit or miss track record with Awad's writing style. I may attempt to reread this in the future but the dreamy, meandering prose was not clicking with my brain at this time.

Bonjour mes amis! Rouge translates to Red.
Red is my favorite color.
And my skincare routine is seriously lacking as per Mirabelle’s standards.

Qu’est ce que c’est La Maison de Méduse?

When Mirabelle’s estranged mother Noelle passes away, Belle travels back to California to handle her affairs. Sadly, her mother left behind considerable debt. At the funeral, a mysterious woman in red makes mention of a spa her mother frequented; Belle plans to stop by.

La Maison de Méduse is quite a bizarre spa. A cult perhaps?

From here things unravel and really become unhinged. It is a ride. Magic mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all? HA! Because beautiful skin requires commitment. Non? Definitely not a miracle…

Something about this story really hit the mark with the twisted nightmares of the beauty obsessed industry.
The promise of looking beautiful, only if you follow their regime, using their products. Surely glowing healthy skin will make everything better.

Oof.
I am pleased to have given Mona Awad another chance. I enjoyed this little slice of hell.

Rouge tells the story of Mirabelle whose mother suddenly passes away. Mirabelle travels to LA for the funeral and while there begins to learn what may have happened.

The story goes back and forth in time and tells the truth about the beauty industry. Mona’s writing is so illustrative and vivid and truly unique however there were times when I was unable to understand the true story.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more of Mona’s work.

Thank you to NetGalley for this E-Book. Rouge is a fantastical look at mother-daughter relationships, love and loss, youth and aging. A scary look at the beauty industry, and obsessions. step into the world of Rouge if you dare!

DNF at 17%.

Could not connect with our MC like at all. It was hard getting through Bunny, but this? Maybe i'm just not in the right reading state of mind. Whatever it is, I had no drive to continue reading it.

The description felt way more exciting than the inside. I wanted to give Mona Awad novels another chance, but I am thinking I need to read the physical copy or listen to it. The EPUB just wasn't doing it for me. I don't know if Bunny had more of a hook at the start, or if it was because I wasn't familiar with the writing style, but going into this felt like a headache the entire time.

Wrong book, wrong place for me.

How is Mona Awad so good? Literally how? I am so in awe of her command of the English language and her ability to craft weird, creative stories that keep you turning the pages! This book is so amazing and I cannot recommend it enough especially for spooky season. The creep factor is MAXIMUM and you will love this book if you're interested in a good scare this fall!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC copy!

This book is a wild ride. A very dark and unapologetic look into the unrealistic beauty standards. I really wanted to love this book but it dragged a little bit for me and I found it hard to pay attention the whole way through.

I have read All’s Well by this author and gave it a 3-star; this novel was slightly better for me. This book had a mix of horror with themes of jealousy and vain. The author has a good writing style but something about the genre as a whole escapes me (I think) and this is no fault of the author. Overall, 3.5 ⭐️ for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review and opinion.

As somebody who was disappointed by Bunny, but in a way that left me wanting to read MORE of Mona Awad's work, not less, Rouge feels like everything Bunny COULD have been. It feels more sensitive, more grown, more sure of itself, in part because it feels intimately vulnerable in a way that Bunny didn't. We feel Mirabelle deeply, her relationship with Mother, with Marva, with herself. The search for a mother-figure is explored in a variety of avenues, and it's a very familiar yearning for those of us who may have had more fraught relationships with our own mothers, especially those of us whose relationship with our mothers may have been touched by envy, in either direction, and couldn't recover from it. I'm really looking forward to picking up All's Well next in my Awad reading journey after Rouge!

A wild ride.

This book does so much (and successfully). It is: a satire/critique of the beauty industry and especially the online culture around skincare/anti-aging, a pager-turner thriller/mystery, a unique and original magical realism tale, a compelling narrative about grief and loss, a story of a complicated mother-daughter relationship, and in some ways also a coming-of-age story. There is just so much going on, and yet it all works.

Similarly, Mona Awad manages to make references to a vast number of stories and myths, and yet each one has something sneaky and subtle (or sometimes not-that-subtle) to add if you catch it. Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Egyptian and Greek mythology, the Snow Queen, Bluebeard, The Little Mermaid, the Wizard of Oz....among others.

As the novel progresses, wordplay and creative use of language becomes an important part of it (the reasons are a spoiler), and that aspect is done well, adding humour and meaning.

At no point while reading this did I have any idea what was going to happen next. And all I will say about the ending is that it was satisfying!

Having read Mona Awad's first novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, I was not surprised to meet another socially-distant, self-absorbed, and obsessive main character in Rouge. But while I found her debut novel well-written but a bit overly bitter and abject (for my personal preference), Rouge has more poetry, wit, humour, and lightness which make for a much more captivating read. The darkness, societal critique, and satire are if anything made stronger by these contrasts.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the digital galley copy of Rouge. All opinions in this review are my own. :)

Mirabelle (Belle) follows in her estranged mothers footsteps, working at a clothing shop and following a very meticulous skincare routine. When her mother passes Belle finds herself back in her childhood home coping with her grief and the tumultuous relationship she had with her mother. Then a mysterious woman in red appears, claiming to have the answers to her mothers death. Once Belle puts on her mothers red shoes she’s led to La Maison de Meduse, a strange culty spa. Belle soon discovers the secrets her mother kept and the secrets she buried about herself…

When reading Mona Awad you must be prepared to dive into a trance. It feels like you’re submerged in water and everything is slightly muted and you feel that you’re moving through smooth silk. Be ready for a completely immersive read where you’ll feel weird about your skincare routine and feel seen in Belle’s loneliness.

I loved the fever dream I was in while reading Rouge. There is something hypnotizing to all over her books but this one took it one step deeper. The Tom Cruise references were beyond bonkers and amazing and everything a woman as a teenage girl will relate to.

Having read all of Awad’s work I can see all over her previous novels sprinkled into this one. Which begs the question - is Awad herself folded into the pages of Rouge?

If you’re looking to read horror but would like something a bit less, horror and a bit more literary, you need to try Awad’s books, specifically Rouge. Thank you @penguinrandomca @penguincanada for sending a copy my way, 4✨!

Thank you, Penguin Random House Canada, for an advanced copy in exchange of an honest review.

Rouge by Mona Awad follows Belle, who is grappling with the aftermath of her estranged mother’s death as she travels to Southern California to find that her mother’s life is far from what she had imagined. Between her considerable debt and involvement in a mysterious cult-like spa, Belle is lured into a fever dream of a journey in search of eternal beauty.

An amalgamation of all her previous work, Rouge is a sharp critique of the Skin Care Community with a gothic take on childhood fairy tales. Mona Awad’s writing is visceral and all-consuming. It dissects themes like beauty in itself and proximity to whiteness, grief and cults. It is a dark and twisty nightmare.

I'm sure this will make everyone's fall lists.

I highly recommend this one for fans of her previous two novels, Bunny and All's Well.

Mona Awad is my favourite author. She will ALWAYS be a five star for me. I will continue to recommend her books to everyone who is interested!

This is the embodiment of a feverish reverie🌹But I won't give away too much... 😉.

I sensed, on a profound level, that it delved into the intricacies of mental health and trauma—how one seeks solace and grapples with pain through both wholesome and destructive means 🥀, and the way we nurture ourselves during and after these tumultuous periods. While the book explicitly touches upon these themes, a closer inspection reveals that Awad consistently weaves subtle layers of meaning throughout her narrative.

Yet, amidst the profound contemplation, I also found myself indulging more in my skincare regimen... 😂

Once Awad takes root in your mind, her presence lingers, an indelible imprint."

Content Warnings: death of a parent, depression, grief, profanity, sexual content, alcohol

R Contains profanity, violence, drug use, or nudity.
› Mona Awad is such a unique author. I've never read anything quite like her work. Let's start with the cover. I love the upside-down red jellyfish instead of a rose. Jellyfish play a part in the story, but I'll let you discover that for yourself. "Rouge" is French for "red" and it's all over this novel: red hair, red dress, red shoes, red lipstick.

› Rouge is "a way of being. A way of becoming one's Most Magnificent Self. Your mother was among our most prized members."

› In an interview, Awad said she started writing Rouge while on tour for Bunny. She had been watching lots of skin care videos and was using a lot of products and thought, this is kind of dark.

› The dedication said: "For my mother. Because what is the face, is the skin over the flesh, a cover, a disguise, rouge for the insupportable horror of our living nature." - Elena Ferrante

"Through the hourglass, I saw you
In time, you slipped away
When the mirror crashed I called you
And turned to hear you say...Take my breath away."
- Berlin, Take My Breath Away, written by Giorgio Moroder, Tom Whitlock (from the movie Top Gun starring Tom Cruise)

› The main character is Mirabelle Nour. She owns a shop in Montreal, Canada, called "Damsels in This Dress". Like Awad, our protagonist has a dual heritage. Mirabelle's mother is white and her father, who died when she was five, was Egyptian. With “skin is as white as snow”, her mother Noelle owns a dress shop in California called "Belle of the Ball".


› Mirabelle has a secret obsession with skincare videos. She uses Universal Brightening Peel Pads, Overnight Glycolic Resurfacing Matrix, triple exfoliating Lotion Magique, Firma-Cell, Iso Placenta Shield, Brightening Caviar for Radiance, Diamond-Infused Revitalizing Eye Formula, and Superdefense Multi-Correxion Moisturizing Cloud Jelly.

"A secret between you and the mirror."

› Mirrors are everywhere in this story. The ocean, the magic mirror in her mother's closet, shiny red glass product containers. Even the mobile phones are like mirrors. As a child, Mirabelle loved for her mother to tell her the story about the girl who talked to a friend in the mirror. She loved the idea that a friend in the glass could keep her company because she was lonely.

"A mirror there all along the length of the corridor. A crack in this one too, just like in the bathroom. Another mirror, another crack."

› After Noelle unexpectedly dies, Mirabelle travels to California to attend her mother's funeral and help sell her condo. She learns that her mother doesn't own the shop anymore because she had money problems and had to sell it.

› While cleaning her mother's place she finds a box with a diary from her childhood 1988. There isn't much written in there. She knows something big happened, however, much of her childhood is a mystery to her. She even has a scar on her forehead and can't remember how she got it.

› Mirabelle discovers her mother had been visiting an exclusive spa called La Maison de Méduse before she died. One night she puts on red shoes and they seem to lead her to the spa where she meets some strange people. They tell her she's the "perfect candidate" and give her a free treatment. The perfect candidate for what? What exactly is happening during this treatment? What really happened to her mother? Why is Tom Cruise talking to Mirabelle through the mirror?

› Is it all in her head? Is it really happening? Either way, the world of Rouge is terrifying.

› Characters: 10
› Atmosphere: 10
› Writing Style: 10
disjointed writing and short sentences increase the mystery and tension.
› Plot: 9
› Intrigue: 10
I never once felt like I was taken out of the story.
› Logic: 10
› Enjoyment: 10
Bunnies hopping along the path felt like a call-back to Bunny

My Rating ★★★★★


Average Story Graph Rating 4.18
Average Goodreads Rating 4.09

› Final Thoughts
• With an unreliable narrator Rouge is a dark fairytale retelling of Snow White. This story is a surreal, sinister, and sentimental fever dream about a tumultuous mother/daughter relationship, grief, and the dangers of obsession that reminded me of Eyes Wide Shut and a fairy tale called "The Red Shoes" written by Hans Christian Andersen.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending this book for review. All opinions are my own.

Mona Awed is a tough author for me to review and rate. Both Bunny and Rouge have been 3.5 star reads for me, Bunny I rounded down to 3 stars so I will round up for Rouge. She writes surrealism fiction, which is not for everyone's taste, barely being my taste.

Rouge has been compared to Snow White mixed with Eyes Wide Shut. I feel it is more like a blend between Dorian Gray and Alice in Wonderland. Rouge is the story of a young woman named Belle, who is obsessed with skin care and beauty, had a toxic relationship with her now deceased mother, and returns to California to wrap up her mother's estate. There is an interesting array of people she meets, Tad and Hud Hudson amongst others, and gets involved with the occupants of a cliffside mansion set up as a beauty "spa".

Mona Awed is a fabulous writer, I can't deny that. But the surrealist aspect to her stories feels too much like a fever dream or insanity and sometimes becomes tedious for me. That being said, she is an insightful and clever writer, and Rouge for the most part is a pleasure to read.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The story was strange, whimsical, and maybe slightly scary. The message contained within is important and addresses our cultural obsession with beauty. If you like unique then this book would be for you.

I loved this book! So creative, and took so many risks with form and language. The characters were worth rooting for and the situation, while extreme, felt believable the whole way.
I haven't read many books where the narrator takes such a clear descent, and it was refreshing to see a book that doesn't hold back.
I do wish that the fairytale motif came back in to play more often, it felt mostly abandoned by the second half of the book.
Overall this was a thrilling page turner that I will be recommending to many people!