*Finally* I can share my thoughts with you all on this darkly beautiful book 🥀

Maribelle Nour is a beauty obsessed woman who returns to her estranged mothers estate after her sudden death. As Maribelle delves deeper into her mothers affairs, dark complex secrets from her and her mother’s past are brought to the surface.

If you’ve read Awad’s work before, you know her books get more and more strange as the story progresses, and this book isn’t any different. I absolutely loved the whole atmosphere the cult-like “spa” gave, with its members being just as mysterious and strange. Was it all real? Was it just a dream or hallucination? You never know. There are so many layers to this story that it’s hard to tie them all together in one review.

This book touches a lot on mother-daughter relationships, beauty standards, vanity and ethnicity/culture in relation to beauty standards. I feel this has a great commentary on the beauty industry and how toxic is can be. It’s haunting, heartbreaking, and creates such a unique experience for the reader that you can only get from Mona Awad’s writing.

If you like:
✺ an unsettling + dreamlike setting
✺ bunny by mona awad
✺ complex mother-daughter relationships
then I recommend giving this book a try or adding it to your TBR!

📚𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬: #77
‌
‘Once Upon a Time’ is passed through a warped lens with Mona Awad’s latest offering, a weird and seductive book about beauty, the beauty industry, mothers and daughters and the quest for physical perfection.
‌
Belle, our skin care obsessed heroine, must leave her home in Montreal to settle her mother’s affairs in California after she has died in what can only be deemed, ‘mysterious circumstances’. Part of the mystery of what happened to her mother lies in the elusive and exclusive La Maison de Meduse, a spa that has the most unusual practices and is less body rejuvenation and more cult of beauty. What starts as a fairly straight up and linear story soon begins to veer into dreamlike
(or nightmare)scenario that has you questioning how reliable our narrator actually is and what is real or merely a dream.
‌
Three quarters of the way through I had no idea what was happening or where it was going to end up, but I trusted the journey and promptly ordered Awad’s previous and hugely popular on @tiktok book, ‘Bunny’ because I love the way her offbeat brain works and I need more!
‌
I don’t know if this will be for everyone, and I imagine some will be very thrown by it regardless of how much you love Tom Cruise (IYKYK)
but it definitely was for me, and more than once this reminded me of the work of Angela Carter and if you know and like her, you could respond to this.
A truly original narrative, that poses among other big questions, what we’ll do to be the fairest of them all. Thank you to @simonandschuster @marysueruccibooks for the #gifted copy.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the fairest of them all?”

Rouge has me with lots of thoughts and feelings that I am unsure about. I’m so conflicted over how to rate this one because I see the absolute genius that is Mona Awad and thought this story was creative, interesting, and weird in all the best ways - but I also found myself bored, confused and underwhelmed throughout the novel.

I believe the problem is that I expected to love it and be immersed in every second of its creepy, twisty, fairy tale horror. And that expectation I had is taking over my feelings about this one.
This is my first Mona Awad book – I have All’s Well on my shelves and have checked Bunny out at the library more times than I can count, but have never gotten around to reading it. I have heard this one is like a cult-y sister to Bunny so I am wishing I would have read that one first.

This is a dark and trippy story with tons of fairy tale elements to it (which I loved!) about a woman named Mirabelle – sometimes Mira or Belle for short - whose mother dies. When she comes home for the funeral and to take care of her mother’s home, she spirals down a sinister path looking for youth and beauty – something she has yearned for her whole life and was a huge part of her mother’s life and their interesting relationship.
This reads like a fever dream and is filled with amazing imagery and colors and horror with nods to fairy tales like Snow White & Beauty and the Beast - and even features an appearance by Tom Cruise (or does it?)

The way Awad writes about the beauty industry and the pressure it puts on women to look younger – and spend all their money on products to be their most beautiful selves – really is to be admired and championed. She writes in a way that asks the reader a lot of questions about what they would be willing to sacrifice for their own personal beauty but does it in a way that is interesting, beautiful and at times horrifying.
With all that said – I just had a hard time getting through this book. It wasn’t one that I constantly wanted to pick up to see what would happen next. I think I expected a more propulsive novel for some reason – the book was written with a surreal dreamlike quality that sometimes became repetitive and at times not as interesting when we were in the dream state.
The last 50 pages were amazing and had me reading as fast as I could – the end was filled with thrills, horror, suspense, (some) answers and, surprisingly, much beauty and emotion in its final pages.

So I am torn. This is one I may need to sit with for awhile and really let sink in for a bit but I absolutely want to read her other novels and get a further glimpse into this brilliant, twisted, interesting, and unique brain of Mona Awad.

Have you read anything by Mona Awad? Her books seem incredibly discussable so I would love to hear your thoughts if you have read this one – or which you recommend for me to read next.

Thank you so much to Mona Awad, Simon Element, S&S/Marysue Rucci Books, and NetGalley for the digital review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

If you like books that are odd, Rouge is for you. Belle is estranged from her mother and living in Montreal working at a dress shop. She’s also obsessed with skin care (acids, lotions, serums, purifiers) and a popular skin care influencer. When her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she must return to California to deal with the funeral and her mother’s estate. Things do not go as planned. She finds a high-end spa near her mother’s home that lures her in. It forces her to deal with her past, present and future all at the same time. You will never look at a jellyfish the same way.

So, I know it sounds really strange, but Rouge worked for me. It was the perfect gothic fairytale for our time. (Note that this does have magical realism, which I have learned to really enjoy over the past few years.). This is not a story you have read before.

Thank you Thank you @simonandschuster and @marysueruccibooks for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

How much are you willing to sacrifice to become your most beautiful self? That's what this book deals with. There are some real sounding skincare regimens and products that had me laughing but honestly could be real. It was satire at its best. Even the references to Tom Cruise was done so well. While I loved parts of this book, it lost me a bit in the middle and became repetitive. I liked the ending but I wanted a little bit more in the middle.

Thank you Mona Awad, S&S/Marysue Rucci Books, and NetGalley for the digital review copy.

As someone who is not invested in the beauty industry, the fact that this was so gripping and terrifying blew my mind a little bit. The layering of grief and uncanny horror is top notch and weirdly feels like a great double read with Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. The characters are engaging and the internal monologue of Belle, the main character, is so honest in the sense that it feels true to how a brain might work. The gothic elements, the kind of filthy, curated, fake sterility of the environment amplifies the unease. I really enjoyed it.

When Belle’s charming, seductive, and beautiful mother dies, she must come to terms with her relationship with her mother and all she inherited from her–including an obsession with skin care and beauty.

ROUGE begins with a fairy tale magic mirror that combines its judgment on beauty with a desirous male gaze that promises much… and continues into a world where obsessive beauty routines give way to a horror-tinged otherworld. The novel is fascinating but slow to get underway. The whole first section of the book is awash in atmosphere and mystery.

A melange of literary language, fairy tale elements, and gothic/horror, ROUGE will satisfy those who appreciate beautiful language, clever use of genre and fairy tale conventions, and a story that says much about our cultural fixation on youth and beauty.

If you have read an Awad novel, then you should know what you're in for. If you haven't, prepare yourself. Rouge is by turn brilliant, trippy, and barbed skewering of the beauty industry. Oh how I LOVE the word replacement (Belle starts losing her mind and can't remember words - her replacements are SO spot on). The nature of beauty, how to maintain it, is it even worth it?, envy, mother/daughter relationships - they're all covered in this twisted story.

"For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass."

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Element, S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed herein are my own.

(ARC from NetGalley) I’m not 100% sure this will be coherent but walk with me…This is a very loose retelling of Snow White with Belle as Snow, Mother as Maleficent and the fuckass mirror is Tom Cruise. It’s a very glossy, goopy fever dream about impossible beauty standards and the risks we take to become our Most Magnificent Selves. I’d say if you like knowing what is going on, skip it. BUT if you at some point have followed ‘Into The Gloss’ or have given yourself a chemical burn with exfoliating toners this is the book for you. Think SpongeBob jellyfish party but the vibes are deeply off-putting.

ROUGE is my third descent into the fever dream of Mona Award’s writing, and I think it may be my favorite. It centers around Belle, who travels from Montreal, Canada to San Diego, California after the unexpected death of her estranged mother. As Belle works to tie all the loose ends her mother has left, she finds herself drawn to a mysterious house on a cliff - not a house… a spa. And Belle is no stranger to beauty regimes, so what’s a free treatment going to hurt?

Belle is the first explicitly mixed race character that I’ve read in Awad’s work and I really loved how that perspective added to the many explorations Awad embarks on. An indictment of the societal fixation on beauty and skincare, with an exploration of the Snow White story, what makes ROUGE really ~brighten~ is the mother-daughter relationship at its core. It’s complex, it’s devastating, it had me randomly leaking saltwater everywhere in the end!! Awad, as always, held no punches in the ways that mothers and daughters can harm one another, can envy each other - and it absolutely wrecked me! :)

As with her previous work, Awad’s writing is also deadpan funny. I found myself laughing throughout, which was a welcome break to the creepy tension and questionable reality. One of my favorite scenes is when Belle is being seduced into beginning a “marvelous journey”, “the only journey that matters in the end […]”, and she responds with, “retinol?”

If you’re a fan of gothic horror, complex mother-daughter relationships on a whole different level, and any of Awad’s previous books, you will probably love Rouge, too. Happy pub day to this gorgeous and horrific book 🥀

Thank you to Marysue Rucci Books for the ARC!

What would you give up for eternal beauty? Would you give your soul over to the deep? And just how deep in the dark waters would you be willing to go?

Rouge is dark, surreal, and terrifying! It’s truly one of the most unique stories I’ve ever read. I couldn’t put it down! Unsettling as it is moving, the story is a dystopian paradise you’ll never want to leave.

A gothic, profound and riveting tale of beauty laced with trauma, and much like real life, a society deeply rooted in appearance, and the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters. It’s set in my favorite place in the world (my old home), La Jolla, CA.
Mona paints such a vivid, contradicting picture of California life, yet it somehow made me feel like I was right back there, at home. The setting for me was as important as any character in the story.

Rouge was like being on a drug, a crazy trip, slipping into a surreal, dark water and never wanting to leave.

The mother daughter relationship hit hard, as both a mother of a daughter and as a daughter with a complicated relationship with her mother.

“But my places will soon be your places. And everything will shatter like glass. Terribly.”

Can we escape the fate of our mothers? The traumas and the fears, or are we all just mirrors of our mothers in the end?

Rouge released this week on 9/12. If it isn’t on your TBR, this is your sign to order it today!

Rouge is out now!!!!
🌹🌹🌹
★★★★☆

I have always been a huge Mona Awad fan, and Rouge did not disappoint. Rouge explores grief through the rose tinted glasses of someone consumed by but unaware of their loss. When Belle, a skincare obsessed tailor, learns of her mother's mysterious death, she is sent down a journey of self-destruction disguised as self-betterment by a cult-like beauty group.

Awad always nails the blissfully unaware yet deranged narrator. Belle is one of her most unhinged characters yet. While it had me gasping "WTF GIRL" again and again, I think Belle may have been too crazy slightly too long and I wanted something to slightly ground her. But again, when it all comes back to grief, sometimes we go a little to far a little too long.

This book reads like a Gialo film on the page, full of whimsical and fairy tale like dread. I wouldn't call this book a horror, but more of an existential lit fic examining grief, mortality, and beauty standards. There are some things (and some actors 👀) I will never think of the same way.

If you enjoy deluded narrators and moments that read like dreams but feel like nightmares, you need to pick this one up!

Rouge, the most recent novel by Bunny author Mona Awad, is nothing if not surreal. Luckily, it’s in the hands of an author who excels at the unworldly. Tokened as a “horror-tinted gothic fairy tale” and a “Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut” kind of story, Rouge follows Belle, a skincare-obsessed dress store clerk, reeling from the sudden death of her estranged mother,when she unwillingly finds herself on a mystical journey in search of hidden beauty and lost youth. Belle soon becomes enmeshed in the highly secretive organization known only as “Rouge,” a cult that operates as a part-time spa, that sucked her mother into its orbit in her final days. Awad’s fourth novel, Rouge sees the author blend the strongest elements of her earlier work — the adolescent tenderness of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, the desperation of All’s Well, and Bunny’s cult antics — and leaves readers with perhaps her most impressive effort yet.

If Rouge is not compelling enough as told by Belle, a grieving, obsessive, devastatingly lonely thirty-eight-year-old woman, Awad incorporates a more vulnerable take on the character in the form of tender, blurry, and mostly-repressed memories of Belle at age ten. In a clever move that adds to Rouge’s thrilling intrigue, Awad disrupts the now-adult Belle’s linear narrative with occasional interludes from ten-year-old Belle (notably, a year from which adult Belle has no memories.) With uncynical earnestness, Awad uses these interludes to slowly build toward a pivotal event the adult Belle has all but erased. The grown-up Belle is far removed from — and paralyzed inside of — this ten-year-old version of herself. She may be estranged from her childhood memories, but finds her life shaped by the same unchanging dynamics — particularly the one between her and her mother, Noelle. At ten, Belle longs to be grown up, to be both like her mother — fiercely independent, adored by men and the world around her, unquestionably beautiful — and at the same time, far, far away from her. At thirty-eight, she is scarred, mentally and physically, by their dynamic, yet resentful of their distance.

It is in this tender, often contradictory, and sometimes indecipherable mother-daughter relationship where Rouge truly hits its stride. Awad navigates the frustrating and, at times, heartbreaking nuances of their dynamic with compassion and expert wit, and shines especially in her depiction of Belle’s experience as a mixed-race child raised by a white, beauty-obsessed mother. Belle’s self-image is shaped by her mother, and even more so by this unchangeable difference. It is through this lens in which each of her mother’s myriad resentments become refracted, and the same lens through which Belle develops her stubborn obsession with beauty. “I’m ethnic, aren’t I?” thinks Belle early in the novel, during a tense moment at Noelle’s funeral. “Something other than Mother, anyway.”

As young Belle moves through the world, witnessing her mother receive compliments that would feel foreign applied to her, always on the periphery of her mother’s whiteness, she has no choice but to internalize this difference. Belle and Noelle’s relationship, tortured on so many layers, is particularly strained along its ethnic lines; “Something other than Mother” becomes the nexus of Belle’s sense of self. Noelle praises Belle’s Egyptian features in the same breath that she laments the ugliness of her own mild tan. Even as a child, Belle sees her mother’s flattery as just placation — there is some fundamental ugliness present in her that her always-beautiful mother cannot unmake, and that she can’t help but occasionally prey on. These layers of resentment — the pivotal, unchangeable difference between mother and daughter, is a stubborn wedge that survives the length of their relationship, making itself known again and again in increasingly devastating revelations. In one critical moment, as she admires her reflection after receiving an ostensibly horrific skincare procedure, Belle first thinks, “There is a whiteness, isn’t there?” before quickly correcting herself. “Brightness, I meant to say. Not a whiteness, I told myself, call it a Brightness.”

Existing parallel to Belle’s complex relationship with her mother is her almost compulsive obsession with skin, which Awad cleverly uses as a bridge from the real world into her carefully-constructed brand of satirical fantasy. Long before we come to understand the complexities of Belle as a character, she’s introduced through her elaborate, rigid skincare routines, which Awad describes with almost scientific precision. During each of these multiple daily rituals, Belle carefully recites the full name and supposed benefit of each in the seemingly infinite process while at the same time emphasizing the pain — a constant, almost unbearable burning sensation — that comes with applying each layer. Her simultaneous dedication to the preservation of beauty and her willingness to disregard pain, while hardly a new phenomenon, make her obsession all the more intriguing. With each layer of product, the line between self-improvement and self-destruction grows perpetually more blurry. Belle, though held in her own regard as an expert in skincare, bucks the medical wisdom and common sense that would suggest a constant burning may signal a product isn’t working correctly, and instead wears the pain like a badge of honor. When particularly stressed, we see her go so far as to perform routines — triple-cleansing, for one — that, while they may appear effective at first glance, do more to damage than preserve her all-too-precious skin. Belle even seems to recognize this pattern of destructive beauty obsession when it manifests in others, at one point describing another woman’s skin as having “that preserved, almost picked quality, suggesting a complex system, a rigid methodology that might be failing her.” Still, she returns home to readily apply an acid that burns her face, carefully eroding the distance between her imperfect skin and the unattainable quality of her mother’s. Here, Awad leaves the meaning of Belle’s obsession enticingly ambiguous; perhaps a form of self-harm by a woman in perpetual crisis, perhaps a last grasp at connecting with a beauty-obsessed, otherwise-estranged mother — or, perhaps, a means of becoming her mother in some way, metaphorically or even physically.. Still, ever dedicated to the novel’s fairytale inspirations, Awad doesn’t let this obsession pass without a moral — it’s Belle’s unrelenting desire for perfect skin, after all, that leads her straight into the belly of Rouge’s cultic beast.

Here, it would be remiss to discuss the dark fantasy at the center of Rouge without giving proper credit to Awad’s sense for satire. In the midst of a novel following two ostensibly tragic figures — a distant mother fated to meet her brutal end and a daughter plagued by grief, drowning in her attempts to navigate an adult life — Awad’s signature tongue-in-cheek outlandishness, though hidden at first, makes itself known in spades. Reminiscent of Eyes Wide Shut, The Stepford Wives, and wealthy, nefarious, real-life secret organizations of yore (the Church of Scientology comes to mind), Awad has perfected the craft of writing a cult that is entertaining in its ridiculousness without undermining its horror. Though it’s difficult to explain without spoiling the entire novel, Awad complicates Rouge with a twist that’s equal parts surprising, supernatural, and hilarious, and somehow saves the story from becoming overwhelmingly bleak while, at the same time, making it all the more tragic. (Admittedly, the pivotal, fantastical reveal in Rouge may be slightly less deftly navigated than that of Bunny, but is no less entertaining).

Cementing Rouge’s ability to be fantastical and even funny without discounting the tragedy of its core is the novel’s gradual transition from the real to the magical, aided by Awad’s carefully-crafted narration. While the novel’s early sections are marked by Belle’s sharp, witty internal monologue, we see this train of thought rapidly devolve into an all-encompassing, trance-like brain fog as her life becomes increasingly surreal. Just as we start to become accustomed to Belle’s bleak and blunt way of rationalizing her grief, the Belle we’ve come to know disappears. As she finds herself increasingly entangled within the cult’s web, Belle’s critical thinking turns to sludge — her mysterious “treatments” suddenly become the only subject of her attention. She mixes up words — “dress” becomes “dread,” “skin” becomes “sin” — and fails to recognize familiar faces, even going as far as to forget the steps to her beloved skincare routine before forgoing it altogether. Her grip on reality and time, two elements already blurred by her grief, seems to slip entirely. While this turn could easily become unnavigable under a less careful author, Awad manages to bring us in and out of Belle’s trance, from blurry repressed memory into illogical present with ease — and without sacrificing the novel’s heart-pounding pace or thrilling mystery. Instead, Rouge’s reality becomes increasingly surreal without ever seeming to jump the shark.

Rouge’s dialogue may be the one area where the novel occasionally starts to falter, but, typical of a Mona Awad novel, it’s not without its own levels of intrigue. Instead, in a pattern not isolated to this novel, Awad seems to perform a literary bait-and-switch with her dialogue, which at first reads as off-puttingly disingenuous before revealing itself as a secret plot device of its own. In Rouge, this pattern appears during Belle’s conversations with her mother, where the inconsistency of their interactions can be read as intentionally warped to the point of disbelief through the lens of Belle’s perspective. In the foggy, surreal memories of ten-year-old Belle, Noelle’s words toward her daughter feel detached at best, envious, and even hateful at worst. Then, during adult Belle’s even-more-surreal conversations with her mother’s spirit, the ghostly Noelle is warm, affectionate, and even remorseful in a way that seems to betray the very essence of her daughter’s memories. In an instant, the mother best described as “distant” becomes a figure ashamedly aware of her wrongdoings, ready with an arsenal of apologies, self-awareness, and — in a first — maternal instinct, before Belle can utter a word. The two Noelles seem irreconcilable, and sometimes almost one-dimensional as a result; then again, Awad leaves open the possibility that neither version is entirely real. Instead, the Noelles we see are perhaps both just partial versions, refracted through the eyes of her daughter, to whom making sense of their relationship seems as insurmountable as bringing down the cult itself. Too late to repent on her own, she is doomed to serve as both the white knight of Rouge’s gothic fairy tale, and at other times, as an almost cartoonish evil queen.

Rouge is exciting, not just because of its engaging premise, but because it truly feels like the culmination of everything Awad has been building towards in her body of work. For fans of the author’s past tragic protagonists, supernatural interventions, and biting wit, it promises not to disappoint. The inheritor of its predecessors’ strongest traits, in Rouge, Awad’s humor, outlandishness, and vulnerability are at their peak.

My first Mona Awad and it certainly won’t be my last. I’ve never read anything quite like this. Unsettling, disorienting and mystifying, I was mesmerized from the start. I loved the writing style, imagery and themes explored : loss/grief, beauty/aging, identity/self-worth, mother/daughter relationships. It felt relatable in a refreshing and frightening way, especially how easily obsessions can consume us . I won’t stop thinking about this one for a while. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was phenomenal!

Rouge is yet another Awad book that felt like entering a fugue state. The main character doesn't know what the hell is happening and neither does the reader. In Rouge, Awad has created some of the trippiest and most menacing scenes that will linger with me long after reading. I have consistently loved Awad's gothic writing style and Rouge was no exception. I also really appreciated the way that Rouge critiqued both beauty norms/culture and difficult mother-daughter relationships.

That being said, I finished the book a bit frustrated. So, like Awad herself, Mirabelle is half-Egyptian. This comes into play with the critiques of Western beauty standards but also with some of the ...entities that Mirabelle interacts with such as Seth (Set) and Horus. However, I felt like those two entities, while clearly connected to the central cult, were never explained as well as I would have liked. How did Horus know that Seth would be after Mirabelle? And what was Noelle's relationship to Horus and Seth?

This was such a weird book and I spent about half of it unsure of whether or not I even liked it. Now that I'm done I really want to go back and read it again! Rouge was an INTENSE fever dream of a book and I can't stop thinking about it.

Belle has just lost her mother, Noelle, and she heads back to California to pack up her things and sell her condo. While their relationship was never particularly great, Belle and Noelle's relationship became irreparably fractured when Belle was a teenager. One of the only things they had in common was an obsession with beauty and Belle carries this with her from adolescence into adulthood. She even watches beauty routine videos as a way to calm herself.

When she arrives, Belle learns things that make her realize she didn't really know her mother at all. Furthermore, something strange and possibly sinister was happening before her mother's dead. Belle finds herself drawn to the gated mansion on the hill, La Maison de Méduse, and the strange cult-like community her mother was a part of. The more time Belle spends at La Maison and the more treatments she endures, the more strange things occur and the more memories she begins to lose.

This is my first Mona Awad, though Bunny & All's Well have been on my TBR for far longer than they should have been. I loved her writing style - her words were full of beauty, but also snarky and crude at times. I loved how she used language to further show Belle's descent into the weird world of Rouge. The final moment between Belle and Noelle was shockingly beautiful and really touched on all of the messed up beauty standards we inherit from our mothers/their mothers/etc. I wasn't expecting that.

Thanks to Simon Element, S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books & NetGalley

3 stars. Much like the only other novel I've read by Mona Awad -- Bunny -- Rouge is very weird. Like Bunny, Rouge also follows a young, solitary woman as she gets drawn into a strange, cult-like group who promise her something otherworldly -- here, it's beauty, something that Belle has been chasing her entire life. I'm honestly not quite sure if this novel is meant to be a critique of the beauty industry in any way -- if so, I don't think it really succeeded. A lot of other reviews praise Rouge for "attacking" the beauty industry, but does it? Does it really attack the beauty industry at all? Nowhere in the house of beautiful people and mirrors did I see a parallel with the beauty industry beyond the surface-level comparison you could draw by saying that they reinforce the same ideals, but maybe that's just me.

The strongest point, in my opinion, was the relationship between Belle and her mother, and separately Belle's perception of her father who died when she was young (and her struggle with internalized racism as part of her obsession with "the perfect skin"). I wish the novel had focused more on these aspects of Belle's character and how they shaped her obsession with her appearance and beauty -- while we do eventually get some backstory on Belle's strained relationship with her mother, it still left me with more questions than answers. The ending suffered from the lack of further development of Belle's relationship with her parents, an ending that could've saved it if I had perhaps felt a bit more emotionally invested in those relationships.

With Bunny, I felt that the novel focused too much on just being weird and too little on weaving a coherent plot, but I did enjoy Mona Awad's prose. Rouge reads just as well and offers a bit more substance, but it still offered more just weirdness than meaning, and ultimately felt a bit short of the mark for me.

Special thanks to Simon Element S&S, Marysue Rucci Books and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

This book was so good I want to scream for everyone to read it! This book is about the beauty industry. The dark side of it. This book is wacky, twisted, and addicting.
The reader becomes absolutely immersed in the elaborate storytelling and feels sometimes in the dark as much as the main character, Belle.

This book is emotional and very true of the horrors and lengths that people go through to be "beautiful". Mona Awad is very crafty with her words and I give this book 5 big stars!

Mona Awad became one of my favorite authors with 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, and sealed that position with Bunny.

With Rouge, she deftly skewers the beauty industry and our internal conversation about our looks. Belle has recently lost her beautiful, glamorous mother and has come to sort through her things. Both mother and daughter are capital-O Obsessed with their appearance, one of the only things they have in common, after becoming estranged when Belle was a young teen.

Digging through her emotional and physical baggage is heavy. Belle finds release in her mother's red shoes which take her to a very exclusive spa.

This isn't just a satire of appearances; Rouge weaves together gaze, body image, aging, the fairy tale red shoes - red Everything, masks, teen angst, mirrors as reflections but also revealers of truth, things we try to forget or repress. Mysterious strangers, surfers, mannequin sisters, silk dresses, Stepford Wives, memories, souls, jellyfish. It's astoundingly fresh while easily recognizable.

What price do we put on beauty? Read Rouge as a cautionary tale, creepy and lush and amazing.

I already want to reread this book.

I just want to shout from the rooftops that this is exactly what i’ve been looking for in a book that claims to take a look at the “dark sides of the beauty industry”. Mona Awad truly understood the assignment! Is it a bit wacky? Yes. Is it a bit far fetched at times? Yes. Is Tom Cruise a main character? That is up for debate (hehehehe).

Not only do we get great commentary on the beauty industry, we also get such visceral commentary on mother-daughter relationships. Mother-daughter relationships are so complex and the pressure that Belle feels to impress her mother and to maintain the perfection that her mother crafted for her runs so deep and ultimately drives her in each and every aspect of her life.

Once you sort of give in to this idea of insidiousness and the lengths that people are willing to go to in order to be considered “beautiful” you will be absolutely MESMERIZED by this story. This web of deceit and odd encounters left me on the edge of my seat! This book definitely will not be for everyone but I am just in awe of how Mona Awad crafted the minute details and managed to weave them seamlessly throughout every single page. Again, I will be rereading this as soon as possible so I can annotate the hell out of it!