2-2.5⭐️

Mirabelle (or Belle, affectionately) is obsessed with skincare - every product, every peel, every cream or most or gel, she tries it. When Belle’s mother dies, she flies to California to the funeral and ends up sucked into her mother’s strange world. When she stumbles upon La Maison de Meduse, a seemingly high-end spa, the free treatments they offer her contain more than she bargained for.

I’m going to preface this review by saying that it’s totally possible that I just don’t “get” Mona Awad or her writing style.

The stream-of-consciousness style narrative fell very flat for me, becoming extremely jumbled and messy and hard to follow. When there was plot to follow (which, honestly, wasn’t often), it got lost in the overly repetitive and descriptive prose.

There wasn’t a lot of dialogue happening, and when it did happen, the formatting strangely was inconsistent - half the time in regular quotation marks, and half the time in italics.

The premise of this book was good, but the half-baked romantic interests and completely unnecessary obsession with Tom Cruise dragged it from quirky and creepy to outlandish and a little ridiculous. The cult aspect was really cool, but unfortunately so underdeveloped and under-explained that it felt more like a side note to her grief-journey.

All in all, I think that this would have worked much better as a short story than a full novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I did not want this story to end. Mona Awad has written a book that not only gave me the creeps, but made me look at the lengths I go to achieve a certain level of loveliness. Thank you, and please keep writing.

Mona Awad's Rouge is a delicious treat of a novel, a poisoned flute of bubbly that sparkles vibrantly at first and leaves you with a pit in your stomach. Awad is so good at balancing dread and whimsy, much like a fairy tale. Rouge follows Mirabelle, a skincare obsessed woman stricken by grief, tasked with clearing her mother's debts and home in the wake of her tragic and suspicious death. Their relationship had been strained for many years, but it is still painful and unsettling to hear people describe her mother in ways Mirabelle doesn't recognize. Mirabelle contends with the discomfort of loss by exfoliating, hydrating, and cleansing her skin, and despite her efforts, she never feels nearly as beautiful as her mother was. Her mother's beauty, and transformation in the time before her death, however, came at a price - and Mirabelle must decide if she's willing to pay it.

I was very impressed by this novel - Awad explores so much (grieving the loss of a flawed parent, the attribution of beauty to whiteness, the way cults prey on vulnerable people, the desire of a child to be seen) with the restraint to allow the reader to come to their own conclusions. The story feels lush and complete, while also leaving so much of the "why?" to our imagination and handling heavy themes with a lightness and subtlety. The writing is vivid and emotive - and I felt so much for Mirabelle at all stages of her life throughout the novel. Mona Awad is a force to be reckoned with and Rouge cements her as one of my favourite authors.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for my ARC of Rouge. This story had an interesting premise that made one look at the lengths people would go to be considered attractive.

This dark fairy tale/horror read like a fever dream that I didn't want to wake from. Such a beautifully written, well imagined and unique story. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

I feel like it’s easy to classify a book as being cinematic, but what do we truly mean by that? Is it merely a text that we want to see adapted, or does it push against the boundaries of the written word.

Reading Rouge was for me a mildly hallucinatory experience. There’s a rhythmic repetition to the prose that feels nearly synesthethic. The prismatic blues of the California coast tainted with a pulsing blood red. The coppery scents of saline and plasma and the slippery satin of rose petal.

If there ever was a book that should be a Peter Strickland movie, it’s Rouge. It’s blend of horror and magic realism, fashion and vanity, grief and longing… and Tom Cruise.

Thank you to @simonandschuster @netgalley for an ARC of this title. Rouge comes out September 12th

4.5 stars.
Rouge follows Belle, who works at a dress shop and is completely obsessed with skincare. When she learns of the death of her mother, Belle travels to her apartment in Southern California. Now, she has to deal with her mother's debt and lingering questions about the unforeseen death. Belle discovers that her mother was a member of a high-end spa called La Maison de Méduse. She later finds herself at their door, being welcomed in with open arms. There, Belle uncovers sinister truths behind her mother’s death, her obsession with beauty, and what’s been lurking in the other side of the mirror.

Mona Awad does it again. This novel is absolutely brilliant!! Rouge expertly explores complex mother-daughter relationships while critiquing the skincare industry. These topics hold the story together, but they are are interwoven into a fun, dark, twisted, and magical plot. The writing is incredibly vivid and the story keeps getting better as it progresses. Interspersed throughout the book, we see a distorted and dream-like reality through Belle’s eyes; Awad’s writing really shines here. We also get disorienting time jumps which adds on to the warped, surreal version of reality. It’s just SO much fun and I completely ate it up. Rouge is filled with magic mirrors, a skincare routine with a seemingly infinite number of steps, Tom Cruise, red jellyfish, red roses, red everything, and has major cult vibes. I am *obsessed*. As much as this book feels like a fever dream, the story is wrapped up wonderfully and had me feeling quite emotional at the end.

This is one of the most unique reading experiences I have had - Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut is a very apt description. The writing was so evocative and lush, and I really enjoyed the exploration of very nuanced topics such as the beauty industry, mother-daughter relationships, and beauty standards. It was really thought provoking and unsettling in the best ways. The pacing was great, it slowly built until a chaotic and very satisfying crescendo.

Once again Mona Awad takes an idea that already sounds like it would make a decent book and she throws in her patented weirdness that keeps you glued to the page.

Mirabelle has inherited her mother's obsession with her looks, particularly, skincare. After news of her mother's sudden death, she finds that she has a lot more than the funeral to deal with. Quickly, she encounters a group of people who seem to share her affinity for skincare and an appreciation that the journey to achieving your beauty goals sometimes exceeds monetary value.

So often I found myself feeling confused and rereading parts, and this is not in a bad way. You can feel how unhinged Belle becomes throughout the book. There are some many things that are left ambiguous. I could not predict where things were going.

If you like weird, you'll want to slather yourself in this one!

very weird.. kind of funny, kind of relatable, especially the whole skincare part. as a woman i definitely understand the pressure to look young and beautiful

This is a page turner and keeps you wondering just what is going on. Life is hard and when you lose someone you love it becomes even harder. Now add a large amount of self-doubt, self-criticism and a good dose of never feeling good enough and you have the makings of a very unstable character. One who is always on the look out for something to make her more beautiful, more acceptable and more loved.
Mirabelle is just that person and dealing with her mother's death causes her to go searching for that which she has been not able to attain.

If you enjoy sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for another shoe to drop, this book is for you!

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for my review!

Here’s my honest review and thank you the author for giving me the chance to read the advance copy of this book.

I’m giving this book 5 stars for story uniqueness and excellent writing. I was captivated by the story & characters between mother & daughter and wanted to know the mystery behind it and was not able to guess it at all, which is unusual for me. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book.

Mystery, Suspense ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Horror ⭐️⭐️
Romance ⭐️

4.5 rounded up.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada, Hamish Hamilton and #netgalley for the advanced reader copy of this deliciously strange novel. I have yet to read Mona Awad's two other books and I really knew nothing about her books except that Bunny seems very divisive.

So when her newest book Rouge (coming out on September 12th) popped up on Net Galley, I decided to give it a go. I love strange books so I was pretty confident that I would at least like it.

Rouge follows Belle, who arrives in La Jolla from Montreal for her mother's funeral. Belle and her mother have always had this disconnect and losing her now leaves so many unanswered questions.

Belle has always idolized her mother's beauty and longed for her pale, creamy complexion, never appreciating the beautiful brown Middle Eastern skin that she gets from her late Egyptian father. Both mother and daughter are obsessed with beauty products and regimens - going to any length to achieve a flawless complexion.

When she died, Belle's mother had attained ultimate beauty and wouldn't share her secrets. Belle is drawn to a mysterious cult like spa where she undergoes their treatment. What follows is a bizarre fever dream of a journey. It's beautifully written - my favourite part was the "word slips" Belle starts to have as she unravels: kiss/kill, sever/serve, sham/shame, skin/sin, ridicule/ritual, insanity/vanity.

I expected this book to be about the beauty industry and the lengths people will go to be beautiful but it's also about deep grief, trauma and the way we can misunderstand the people we love the most. I loved it.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. The following opinions are my own.

This book had so many layers and I found myself relating to some of the main character Belles struggles. Especially about the perception of "beauty," how heavily we are influenced by social media and the pressure to remain young. I loved the way the author weaved a fairytale like quality into the story. The obviously strained relationship between her mother and her, and how it impacted her obsessive nature to groom and cleanse and look after her skin. I'll definitely be looking out for this authors next work.

A mind-bending glimpse into the reality and lack of it in the experience and trials of grief and trauma. I cannot say enough good things about this book and it's metaphors, nor can I say enough about the truth Mona Awad uses to display trauma and the human minds ability to change reality in protection.

What gorgeous prose for a thriller cult novel! I enjoyed the culture clashes and the ubiquitous envy for beauty across age, culture, and gender.
We see the world through Belle, an interracial daughter of a beautiful French mother, who is desperate to keep it that way. Belle seems to have inherited her mother's overwhelming desire to continually seek higher beauty as she devours social advice and products to maintain her incessant skin facial treatments that burn her darker skin. Enduring the pain is worth it to Belle as she continually tries almost any product to attain the bright, allure of facial perfection. Her insecurity fails to see her natural beauty within.
Belle's memories as a child with her mother are fractured, hidden for reasons uncertain. Yet Belle does feel the hurt when her mother left her as a child in the care of her Grandmother when her mother goes off to California in search of movie stardom.
When what appears as an unfortunate accident with her mother, Belle goes to California. She is dumbfounded by the enormous debt her mother has taken on and now burdened her with. Entering her mother's oceanside condo reveals mirrors everywhere and endless amounts of red jars of one mystery skin product that her mother has purchased.
Belle decides to seek out the allure of this one beauty routine. Unknowingly, she too is drawn into this beauty cult.
Rouge is an occult thriller that preys on our desire to do whatever it takes to attain the elusive beauty of youth. It veils the evil predator, making us question who it really is, and why they are taking us on our beauty journey to our most magnificent self.

Delighted to include this title in the September edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley + Penguin Random House Canada for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Rouge releases September 12, 2023


<b>Rouge (noun):
A way of being. A way of becoming one’s Most Magnificent Self.</b>

What was this?? I mean, I know what I read… but really, <I>what was this</I>?!

Mirabelle, our main character, is grieving the loss of her mother, and also happens to have this obsession with skincare. Over the course of the book, we quickly see her spiral and enter this unhinged state.

I can get a sense for what the underlying message was supposed to encompass about vanity, but the execution was so clunky. It felt like I was wading through quicksand, a tropical storm, and any other kind of disaster all at once.
This didn’t have a strong or clear voice of what it wanted to be; part contemporary fic with undertones of various fairytales, but also a whole slew of speculative fiction and body horror among other things. It was just trying to do too much.

Once the narrative started to have a constant mention and delusion of Tom Cruise every other sentence with Mirabelle slipping up by using words that didn’t mean what she intended them to, I started skimming most of the prose.

Definitely a unique way of storytelling, but not for me I guess.
I had a more enjoyable time reading the synopsis than the actual book.

Thank you for this copy netgalley.
This was an interesting dark read for me. Not my usual read but the author had me engaged with her witty writing style.

Mona Awad’s Rouge is kinda weird, kinda wonderful, and a wild ride from start to finish.

Rouge is the story of Mirabelle (Mira to her friends, Belle to her mother), but more accurately, it’s the story of a mother and daughter. Miscommunication (and misinterpretation) creates an ever-widening rift between Belle and her mother, Noelle, as far back as Belle’s early childhood. Belle, half Egyptian on her father’s side, feels unattractive and insignificant to her mother. This spurs an obsession with beauty rituals and skin care that culminates in Belle following in Noelle’s footsteps in search of “your most magnificent self”.

There’s A LOT to unpack in this book, but it’s Belle’s relationship with her mother that hit the hardest for me. So much left unsaid, or not properly explained, between the two. So much love that wasn’t properly expressed. It made me sad, and I definitely cried towards the end of the book.

The writing style gripped my right away. It’s witty and clever, almost tongue-in-cheek. I loved the play on words the author used throughout the story. It really helped set the tone.

There are a few unanswered questions that I’m left with, and while I don’t need my stories to be wrapped up in a big bow at the end, these were plot points I felt were left dangling.

The “romance” didn’t work for me. It didn’t fit the tone of the story. I don’t know if it was supposed to provide a fairytale ending in this bizarre fairytale/myth mashup, or just show that Belle now sees herself as worthy of love, but it felt out of place.

Overall, Rouge was a fun (strange way to describe a horror, I know), surreal, twisted little book. I’ll never look at roses or jellyfish the same way again. 3.75 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for providing the ARC of this book. This review is my honest and voluntary opinion.