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.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Rouge and for introducing me to Mona Awad's literary prowess! I had low to no expectations for this book when I downloaded my ARC copy, but I quickly determined that it was going to be one I would enjoy.

The book depicts Belle, who has a shared addiction with her mother, to seek products that promise the most beautiful and flawless skin. As a result, she invests in beauty products and never misses the videos of her favourite YouTube beauty product influencer. While I'm not a superfan of cosmetics or beauty products, that did not stop me from quickly appreciating the plight of the book's protagonist, Belle. The reader quickly comes to understand that Belle's desire to be more beautiful stems from comparing herself to her mother's beautiful appearance and from feeling all her life like she was ugly and less than.

Mona Awad does a phenomenal job of creating images in the reader's mind that immerse you in the protagonist's experiences. The storyline was built well and flowed, with just the right amount of text. The descriptions of characters, objects, and events were so well written. As someone who was 14 when Top Gun came out, I also enjoyed the use of Tom Cruise as the teenage love interest of Belle and thought it was a cheeky and fun touch.

Great book overall!

It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters that contain reflections on cults, mental illness, physical violence, physical abuse, psychological abuse, the loss of a loved one, grief, promiscuity & others.

The mysterious allure of the morbid drew me once again to a book that was not written for me. This statement is not to be interpreted as a petty nuisance or as a bourgeois stance on the department of stories. Rather, the seasoned reader; the reader whose mind longs for the ghouls to show their malicious tendons in the night; the reader who wishes the grotesques spoke riddles & mumbled turmoil into the wind, will find themselves stunned into stone by the catatonically monotonous premise & plot of this book. It would be an understatement to say that I am disappointed.

As a lover of Horror in all its many ludicrous forms, I cannot help but develop sentiments of eagerness when faced with the opportunity to add a new author to the inventory. Awad’s name is everywhere; readers boast about her writing skills as though no book had ever been so well written in the history of stories before she picked her pen & drenched the page in ink. I will not shy away from saying that I have very little faith in the collective when it comes to social media’s darling authors. Certainly, it would be ignorant to say that authors whose work has become popular are not worth your time in retired Canadian pennies. There are thousands of writers around the world, it just so happens that a collective group of people feel the need to share their enthusiasm & there is nothing wrong with that.

However, here I sit, conflicted & not a little bit confused about the plot I just read. I have seen no criticism of Awad’s work that veered from praise; no single word shadowing a disappointment or lack of thrill. Once again, it would be untruthful of me to say that this did not leave me intrigued. It is human nature to feel the pull of the wave of joy that surfs the social medias in which we visit. The main character in this book, Mirabelle, is a victim of this feeling as well. Yet, so rarely does the dive pay off. I became quickly aware that I had been duped, led astray & left to rot with a story that made no sense & not because it was illogical but because it had been done before, with depth & talent; to find myself reading a semi-sewn attempt at derivative work from the fables & fairytales well-known, was tedious at best.

To begin at the start, this book is about Mirabelle who travels to the California coast from Montréal, Québec, following the sudden death of her mother, Noelle. Mirabelle is an awkward person. Her personality veers on reflective, never actually adopting any depth or sense of self. Though readers might be inclined to state that this is intentional, there is a fine line between vapid & struggling. Never once throughout the entire novel does the main character experience any level of growth or revitalization from her self-loathing. This can be read as a consequence of a poorly built character, one who has so few things going for her that there is little desire to add dimension.

This very same fault befalls all the characters in this book. Not one in the array of casual tertiary characters develops an identity all their own; there is the shop attended, the shirtless window cleaner, the fake-beard-wearing man, the lady in red, the twins, the manager, the male companions, & the mother. Certainly, somewhere among this crew, someone deserved to be written with dimension; someone merited to have a personality all their own & not be stuck in a loop of redundant dialogue & action. Hope as one might that a Horror may be written with the delicate syrup of a tremor in mind, this book fails at hitting the mark.

Mirabelle’s arrival in California allows the story to adopt a dual narrative. At once, the reader follows her experiences in real time as she attends her mother’s wake, speaks to her mother’s friends, & walks the halls of her mother’s condo. In between these events, Mirabelle recalls the childhood that shaped her; her time seated watching her mother prepare for a date with another man who promised her movie stardom, another day complaining about working at The Hudson’s Bay Company (The Bay), another moment wherein her grand-maman, spoke to her of the end of the world.

I appreciated the flashbacks to a youth, which was evidently deranged by the shadow of the ghost of Tom Cruise. That is not to say that I think the inclusion of Tom Cruise was a good idea. On the contrary, I think this aspect added a facet of lunacy that was both hilarious & succumbed the story to a Drama rather than the Horror it was purporting to be. The inclusion of the past proved to be far more interesting than any of the actual alleged drama of the present. I cannot necessarily fault the author for including a more intriguing aspect of a dual narrative. This is often the way of these things, one tends to prefer one timeline to another & the book hardly reaches favouritism amongst readers given none can agree on the superiority of the whole.

Back & forth the narrative flows until the reader has grown tired within the first five percent of the mundane redundancy of the story. Throughout my reading experience, I questioned whether or not the author’s previous work followed a similar suit. How can so many people love a writing style that is so trite, corny, & bland? Cruel it is, perhaps, to say such a thing but, regardless, it is true. This story would have benefited from being half the length. The joys to be found when reading a novella are in the knowledge & first-hand experience noting that the author has kept the fruit itself succulent & juicy for consumption. Having this story play out within a novel format dragged it down. There was no suspense, no tension or worry, there was repetition & redundancy galore & nothing else.

The sheer number of times the reader explores the very same passages leaves them with no other option than to call to mind the original works that the author has used to line her book. The red glass slippers ring true to “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). The path through the cliffs & the wood to a woman who houses sweetness, a callous representation of the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” (1812). The shiny twin bodies of the slimy red queen, shadowy forms the likes of which can be found in “Alice in Wonderland” (1951). The wishful desires of the mirror are nostalgic reminders of the story of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). The castrated reflection aiming for independence is just such a one as is found in “Peter Pan” (1953), which was originally a play written by J.M. Barrie in 1904.

The list goes on & perhaps the point of this book was to case the small plot in a magical world of familiar faces & actions so that the reader might find themselves eased through the story. I cannot say for certain, I am not the author. What I can say with certainty is that though these markers of nostalgia & similarity might ring a quaint tune, the story should not lie wholly on the backs of works that have already been done by champions of storytelling. Fables & fairytales can be adopted to find the modern consumer without necessarily regurgitating platitudes. I found the nomenclature of the Woman in Red to fit ideally with the lore associated throughout many cultures & centuries, with the Woman in White.

Awad had ample opportunity to craft a tale dark & mysterious as the ghoulish masked face in the mirror for which she drew a pound of flesh. Yet, in lieu of malevolence turned beast & instigator, the reader is met with Tom Cruise. I repeat this fact twice because there were many more important things to explore than the movie roster of the actor. Mirabelle deals with low self-esteem as a consequence of her skin pigmentation. The child of mixed parents, her encounter with the world shines light on her mother & leaves her darker skin to callous, unloved. This should have been presented with the gumption that is deserved. Instead, here we come through another long-sequenced dialogue from the paranormal spirit in the mirror whose actual name was….Seth.

What was the purpose of this? Surely, readers note the abundantly corny writing that nose dives into rocky gardens as an attempt to bring cultural awareness & link the reader’s own past childhood crushes to Mirabelle’s. Yet, this is supposed to be a Horror. This story is supposed to incite feelings of dread & malaise; one is not supposed to be wriggling with discomfort at a ghost named Seth who seems to speak kindness to Mirabelle who is experiencing colourism. Where is the fright? Where are the screams & moans of torment? Seth (a.k.a Tom Cruise) is a worm of a character who does nothing but bring down the quality of this book.

Ultimately, I am aghast, not because of the cult of skin-care-loving abusers who slurp the soul like a Windigo; escape the legal system’s clutches like a Changeling; roam the countryside like maggots the likes of which feature in any number of episodes of “The X-Files” (1993); I am aghast because this was a story about listening to skin-care regiments & reading about the main character’s walk down the same pathways every single chapter. This book is quirky in the worst way. It’s shallow & tedious & truly a lost potential. Therefore, for any readers who consume literature as I do, you may take this voluntarism of my time as freedom in yours to save yourself the burden.

With that being said, I know this book will be beloved. The readers who have found themselves eagerly knocking at Rouge’s cult door will nibble the crumbs of a treatment meant specifically for them; the sly grimy minds of the fandom of easy reading. As always, this is not said with malicious intent. The world needs all kinds of people—readers included. Though none of this story was of particular joy to me; joy in the sense of finding a story brooding & gothic like the haunting pain experienced in Mirabelle’s neglected & abandoned childhood; I am confident in my assessment that the plot is a gem the likes of which many readers will seek to possess & admire.

As for those who, like myself, need something altogether different. The darkened rocky pathway leading to the house of the banal cult will veer into the ocean wherein the detritus of the Leviathan’s passage will ask us to be brave & dive headfirst into the original & familiar encasing of the deep.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, & Mona Awad for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

3.5/5 stars. This book is released September 12, 2023. Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada, Mona Awad and Netgalley for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

Belle’s mother, who was very into beauty products, has just passed so she travels to her mothers apartment to close her estate. When she arrives she meets some of her mothers acquaintances and starts trying out her mothers beauty regimes. Things go downhill from there!

This was my first Mona awad book. It was less classical thriller than I expected and more magical/fantasy thriller. Dark, but not in that classical gruesome way. A little bit sad and says a lot about beauty standards in between the lines. I’m not sure the style was right for me but is probably for some people, and could be a good spooky season read!

Belle has always been obsessed with skincare videos and her skin's appearance. When her estranged mother, Noelle, dies, Belle returns to Southern California to face her mother's debts and unanswered questions about her death. At the funeral, a mysterious woman in red offers a clue about Noelle's death, followed by a puzzling video about a transformative spa. Tempted by red shoes, Belle enters La Maison de Méduse, the same spa her mother loved, and discovers its eerie secret connected to mirrors. Mona Awad combines magical realism and dark fairytales, delving into the dark side of beauty, grief, and the complex mother-daughter bond. Through dark humor and chilling horror, Rouge examines the cult-like beauty industry and its ruthless standards. With a backdrop of California's brightness and red rose petals, the novel challenges our relationship with appearance, mortality, and hidden desires.

There were multiple times within the book where I had no idea what was going on...but in kind of a good way? I did find that the story was lagging a bit at the start however by the end it really picked up. I feel like there were a lot of themes and metaphors throughout the novel that might have been lost on me at the first read, however by the end things started to come together. I will say that the writing was impeccable and I loved the eerie and horror elements to the book. I definitely need to read all of Mona Awad's backlog now!
Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House and the author for providing me with a digital arc in return for an honest review. "Rouge" comes out September 12th!
3.5/5

Rouge is another strong offering from Awad, and to me it is most akin to Bunny. Mirabelle, daughter to a White French-Canadian mother and Egyptian father, becomes a client at Rouge, an exclusive, mysterious skin-care spa in a mansion on the California coast.

Cue the amazing imagery of an Awad novel, the deep exploration of fairytale and myth, the longing to escape oneself and be something else–or someone else, or something perfect and untouchable–and free from this world of pain and angst. The novel is bathed in red, white and black, and infused with fairytale references, most notably Snow White. Mirrors, mirrors everywhere. It teems with the pain of being othered, brown-skinned in a world that values whiteness, and never being able to attain the unconditional positive regard of one’s mother.

As I write this, the words come so easily, because the novel is rich and invites deep interpretation and thought. There’s so much to get lost in, and I suspect this will appeal to many readers. What will be exciting to some is where I got tripped up with the novel: in the reading experience. I wish my experience reading it was as fantastic as the themes it presented, as fascinating as the red, bloody beating heart of it could have been. Some parts were gripping, but I slogged through the middle third. There were too many words and a bit of repetition that I didn’t need; this slightly bloated quality slowed the novel down too much for me. The dreamy quality worked at first, then became excessively dreamy for my taste. I wanted to push the narrative forward. I craved more precision from the prose to keep my attention and make the themes hit harder for me. Can there be too many themes and fairy-tale references? Perhaps yes, because for me the overall message got a bit lost. I needed Awad to wield a fine brush at times rather than use a splatter-paint technique.

The ending really picked up and finished strong, and I was left wondering if I could identify an overarching theme here. Awad gave me a clue near the end that put the novel in more perspective. Mirabelle is talking to handyman Tad, who loved her mother:

“Grief is a journey,” he says. “And everyone has their own way, you know?”

Rouge is so deep that one could write pages and pages of literary interpretation. In the end I think it may be about mothers and daughters and the inevitable disconnect. Mirabelle was probably grieving the loss of her mother in different ways throughout her whole life, always seeing herself as a reflection of her unattainable mother. The spa at Rouge was a critical working through. Mirabelle’s journey was fraught, but I didn’t really understand it until the end, and perhaps I still don’t.

I’m glad I read Rouge, as it truly is a remarkable book. I think it will appeal to many, and I’m glad I read it, but I would have enjoyed my own journey through the book more if there had been a clearer pathway.

I'd like to give this book 3.5 stars here if I could.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an advanced copy!

Mona Awad's Rouge feels like a fever dream in the best way possible.

One of the strengths of Rouge lies in Awad's ability to seamlessly blend what feels like the supernatural with the mundane. And although there is no explicit horror or thrilling moments, the author creates an atmosphere of unease that lingers long after the final page is turned. The pacing is slow but steady, though I didn't mind this. Everything in Rouge, and I mean everything, is deliberate. Miss Mona Awad, you waste no space at all and it shows. I especially loved the word swapping that was implemented in conjunction with Belle's treatments at Rouge. It was clever and added a dark humour to the story.

As this is a LitFic novel, the narrative is rife with symbolism and metaphor about beauty, obsession, and the depth of our desires. For me personally, this metaphor was a little too on the nose. If you read Rouge, you'll know what I mean by the final page. While I think vanity - and all that accompanies it - is a great theme to explore, the parallels between Belle and her mother were a little too evident for my taste.

Ultimately, I think Rouge is a captivating journey that explores the darkest aspects of human desire, vanity, and the sinister allure of transformation. If you don't like LitFic, maybe skip this read, as the novel's best attributes are its character development and the writing itself.

Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of Rouge by Mona Awad to review. All thoughts are my own and are not influenced by any third party. #Rouge #NetGalley

Strangely, often the time we get to know our parents best is when they age, or die, and we are left in charge of their belongings, affairs, and carefully squirrelled away darkest secrets.
In Mona Awad’s “Rouge”, we see this careful unpacking of who a mother has been to Belle. We see the impacts of her words and actions, but also the acidic punishment of her inactions.
“Rouge” explores beauty in a mad funhouse kind of way. The reader might find themselves asking, “am I in a dream now?” but really everything is quite real. This is the darkest fairy tale real-life traipse through a department store beauty section you’ll ever read and yet I still found myriad opportunities to laugh. Awad is brilliant at sneaking in lines that let the reader know she’s with us. She’s tugging at your sleeve, saying, “That body image disorder you might have? I get it. Let’s look at it from all of the angles. Come on a wild ride with me!”
I’ve truly never read an author who does such a great job at showcasing the complexities of mother/child and woman/friend relationships. She’s brilliant at showing the insecurities many of us have even with the people we think adore us the most. I felt this in her “Bunny” and also “All’s Well”.
Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth” meets “Black Swan” meets just oh you know, every sleepover you had as a young person plus the body criticisms that you have collected-invisible scars on flesh on your journey to adulthood.

Belle returns to her hometown when her mother dies to set affairs in order. Belle has an addiction to skin products having an extreme routine both morning and evening. As she goes to the cliff where her mother was found dead at the bottom she sees an old house where a mysterious woman in red beckons her in.

This is my first read of Awad's and I now want to read all of her books. This book has so many themes going on at once such as the beauty industry, feeling uncomfortable with one's own skin, cults, and sanity. The writing is stark and the plot terrifying. I'd mostly call the book magical realism which descends into horror by the end. One of my favourite tropes of a woman's descent into madness is one of the main themes. This is a slow burn which switches from the present to the past without warning. Not a book for everyone but if you like surrealism you'll definitely want to give this a go.

When I say this book caused me discomfort when reading it, I mean that in the best possible way - each turn of the page forces the reader to reflect on assumptions of beauty & race, self-worth, and the destructive inner narratives we cling to.

"Rouge" by Mona Awad is a hypnotic, horror-tinged story that follows protagonist Belle (Mira or Mirabelle) down a twisty rabbit hole into the clutches of a beauty cult with nefarious intentions. Drifting in a fog of grief and self-sabotage, Belle navigates the complex past of her relationship with her mother and the secrets they hold. Everything about this modern fable feels distorted, abstract, and twisted, and "Rouge" offers a surrealist interpretation of how memories and subconscious desires impact our grasp on reality.

I would 100% recommend "Rouge" to anyone who likes a read with a nightmarish atmosphere, a Lynchian aesthetic, and a brilliant and unhinged plot.

Mona awad does it again! The way she writes magical realism horror stories is unmatched.
Rouge is about Mira going back to California after her estranged mother dies. Once she arrives, she starts to unravel all of the weird, mysterious things her mother was participating in.
The beginning was a bit slow, but once you get into the story, you're hooked.
The story deals with grief, complex mother-daughter relationships and the toxic aspects of the beauty industry.
Highly recommend!

I gotta be honest...I have no idea what happened in this book, but I also couldn't put it down....so....here I am with a 3 star?

if you want the feeling of neon demon, infinity pool and suspiria (‘72) you should read rouge.

rouge by mona awad follows mirabelle, a skincare obsessed retail-worker w mommy issues. belle is dealing with her mom’s estate after her passing when she discovers the culty skincare group she was involved in.

i loved the fever dream feeling of this. the visuals were really pleasing. overall it dragged on for me and i even fell asleep face down in the middle of reading it. maybe that’s because this feels SO close to my own dreams?

i thought the commentary on whiteness and its relation to beauty was important as mirabelle is half egyptian who loves a “brightening”treatment.

overall i think this was a wild read that a lot of people will enjoy. thank you @netgalley for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my review. rouge is out sept 12, 2023!

As usual with all of Awad’s work, I am awed and engaged by the story the entire time. I love that she always has eerie and weirdo themes in her books because that’s the kind of spooky stuff I want to consume!!

rouge is a dark fairytale horror full of magical realism. strange, surreal and satirical. if you like weird stories that leave you thinking “what the f*** did i just read?!” this one is for you. reading rouge was a twisted wild ride and i loved every second of it.

rouge explores intense dynamics of strained mother-daughter relationships, themes of
race, grief, and the toxicity of obsession with vanity.

mesmerizing and horrifying. i can’t wait for everyone to read this one.

I was so excited to be approved for an ARC on Netgally for this book. My first by Mona Awad and definitely will not be my last. Beautifully written. Weird. Thought-provoking.

This book is like a gothic fairytale and shines a light on our society's obsession with beauty and youth and what we are willing to give up to obtain it.

It also dives into the complexity of mother daughter relationships. There are some passages close to the end of the book that had me sobbing (I NEVER cry in books) I will be back to post them once my copy of the book comes in.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgally for giving me the opportunity to read this book early in exchange for an honest review.

I came expecting a critique of the beauty industry and fairy tale allegories. I left with a haunting and touching story centred on a complicated mother/daughter relationship with a vivid and surreal atmosphere. Mona Awad is so good at creating fantastical surroundings and deftly weaving themes of grief and beauty with references to mythology and fairy tales. I admire how well she uses the English language and while I can't write like that it's such a treat to be able to read it.

Woah - that was an interesting dream-like slow-burn gothic wtf did I just read? A unique take on a fiction story with a female lead.

I am interested in reading another Mona Awad.

Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC

thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and Netgalley for providing me with this eARC.


Belle, do you ever look in the mirror and hate? she asked me once on the phone.
Hate? I stared at the silhouette of my reflection in the dark. Yes, I thought. Of course. All the fucking time. But I said, Hate what, Mother?
I could picture her sitting alone in the dark like I was, staring at herself in the mirror.
Ce que tu vois, Mother whispered.


this book was a rollercoaster. i went through every possible emotion reading this: sadness, anger, happiness, shock, and i didn't expect myself to tear up at the end, that's for sure!

Rouge by Mona Awad centers on the relatable character of a skincare-obsessed, insecure, and acquiescent Mirabelle Nour. throughout the novel, in addition to the present story we are shown particular memories from her childhood that each contribute a significant amount to her character and change how the reader sees her as a character. from her childhood, 'Belle' was a self-conscious little girl who craved validation, but most of all, beauty. the beauty her mostly emotionally-absent mother had, in particular. Belle's mother, Noelle Desjardins is described as a beautiful pale redhead who seemed to have an unnatural beauty found in the stars of classic films. she always had the montgomery clift or tom cruise-type man on her arm and dreamed to be an actress. she was rarely at home in Belle's childhood. unlike her mother, Belle was darker in skin tone (acquired from her absent Egyptian father), with coarse, thick, dark hair and a mark on her forehead which always took away from her confidence.

now, i can't say much else about her character because i don't want to spoil it but what i can say is that although she is far from perfect, Belle possesses qualities that i believe every woman can identify with. she is envious of the people she sees more beautiful than her and she feels that in order to feel confident she must incorporate many creams, toners, and acids into her daily routine. she was very attention-deprived as a child, with her mother rarely being at home and her father absent from her life which, in my opinion, made her both very vulnerable and a perfect candidate of the mysterious 'Rouge' group, in the first place. this factor also made her quite malleable for someone to make her do what they pleased.

the only criticism i would give this book is that it dragged a little in the middle, and could have been shorter. i did feel myself getting bored at this point and putting my kindle down quite often. the climax though? that certainly made up for it. it did not lack and i would not have it go any other way.

this was my second Mona Awad novel (after Bunny), and i can definitely see how uniquely gorgeous her writing style is. the description of Rouge promised Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut, and it truly delivered these vibes. it did come for the beauty industry, as well, having shown that powerful groups take advantage of weak and insecure girls who want to feel beautiful, but only end up being "corrupted". even while reading the first chapter of the book, i fell in love with this world and its atmosphere. i found that the introduction was very enthralling. i'm excited to see more from miss Awad and would recommend this book to the girlies who like twisted, cultish, gothic fairytale-style stories about imperfect girls on the journey toward self-acceptance.