Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for accepting my request to read and review this book early.

I adored Mona Awad's All's Well and I found Bunny to be compelling if not a little over the top. But I do really adore her writing.

Rouge, however, felt like Mona Awad forcing her writing to sound weird and strange but it all sadly fell rather flat for me.

I dd not connect once to the protagonist of the story, I hated every single goddamn Tom Cruise referece, scenes felt like fever dreams and I was just confused semi-permanently. But aside all that I just did not find the story awfully compelling.

I think sometimes the creepiness and weirdness comes in subtle hints rather than this kind of convoluted bizarre word-soup overwhelming attempt.

A wild ride from start to finish, we’re you buckle yourself in, not knowing what will come next. Perfect if you enjoyed Awad’s other book, Bunny, A very interesting book that takes a look on the beauty industry and how they prey on you from such a young age. I loved the complex mother/daughter relationship that gave elements of Snow White, but not in the way you would expect. I adored the ending and loved the way the book was written. I thought the main characters descent into the cult was perfectly encapsulated by the substitution of words (eg. skin and sin). A great book, I already can’t wait to reread!

The beauty industry is WILD.

I liked this book, and would recommend it to others to read. However, I wouldn't say I loved it. But it was beautifully written, and definitely engaging enough. I'm not sure if I held myself back a bit from really enjoying as I consumed it on my phone, rather than a usual physical copy.

3.5 / 5

When skincare obsessed Belle's mother dies, she returns to Southern California to find debt and mysterious circumstances left behind. She soon finds herself invited to an exclusive spa that her mother attended and things unravel from there.

Things get strange in this novel in a way that is not totally unexpected from Awad and can be truly gripping when done well as it is here. This story hints at dark fairytales while exploring themes of beauty and identity and the dangers of relying on the perceptions and expectations of others.

Why did it have to be Tom Cruise though?

If you're willing to dive into a mind-bending journey filled with mirrors, mannequins, and movie tropes – all aimed at unraveling the sheer absurdity of impossible beauty standards – that could potentially leave you washed up on the shore, this book is for you.

It's got Dorothy's red shoes, Alice's rooms of poisons, eyes-wide-shut secrets, and faces of Dorian Grays. Yet, beneath all these fanciful layers, I found this book more accessible than "All's Well," the only other Awad book I've read. I felt this was due to Belle being a fully realised protagonist; her struggles embody a universality relatable to all women.

I connected with Belle's journey, from child outcast to despondent young woman, in the wake of her glamorous tinsel-town mother's death. And I'm a complete sucker for narratives that explore the complexities of “eccentric” mothers.

The uncomfortably intimate portrayals of beauty treatments, the commentary on the beauty industry's underbelly, the insidious influence of racism on our concepts of ultimate beauty, and the indoctrination of young girls from a tender age, all resonated with me. The narrative brilliantly examines how we often find ourselves entrapped within a system that encourages us to claw at ourselves and compete with each other.

I was gripped by this eye-gouging, entrancing book of red. I just ordered Bunny!

"Sucking his admiration like marrow from the veal bones she used to enjoy with parsley and salt."
Mirabelle has a troubled relationship with her mother, Noelle. They're both incredibly consumed with their physical appearance. Noelle is a would-be starlet come sex worker, sleeping her way to opportunities to be a star: "On audition days, Mother sees only herself, her dream of herself in what she calls that other world." Mirabelle feels ugly by comparison, and abandoned in favour of these endless boyfriends.

In the real world, Noelle works in a series of dress shops, culminating in one she names for her daughter: Belle of the Ball. She trains her daughter in lying to give other women what they want, a career Belle follows her into at a gothic, Montreal-based store called Damsel in This Dress: "Never just a dress. Mother taught me that. What they want, she said, is an experience. A transformation. A touch of magic." The reason for their fractured relationship—"I hated her too in that moment"—is revealed slowly through the course of the book, as they both chase an elusive standard of beauty via increasingly bizarre treatments.

Mona Awad paints a pretty withering picture of women, our relationships, and the things that make us tick: "I can tell by the twitch in her lip, the hopeful shine in her eyes. She's brimming with it: a longing for delusion." Is mirrors all that all women are for each other? Are lies what we expect from shop assistants: "Giving them their dream of themselves." Are our lovers simply mirrors? "I knew I couldn't go back with her. It would have been like fucking my own loneliness."

Probably the best bit of this gothic fairy tale is the word slippage, where, as Mirabelle unravels, she becomes Freudian in her narrative: "How we all look like the same lonely demon. Same lovely woman, I mean. Who knew words could be such slippery things?" I am sure many will really like this twisted story, it's a bit like the American film, Black Swan (2010), where madness and grief are personified, and sanity is what you sacrifice for perfection. It's definitely will appeal to women who relate to a competitive streak between themselves and other women, particularly their mothers. As this isn't something I relate to, I found Rouge a bit bleak and depressing. This book made me angry at the beauty industry that has us smearing our faces with placenta to "glow" or thinking we need pearls for brightening, feeding our warped view of ourselves as the only thing that matters. The writing is a bit dream-like, a stream of consciousness style that didn't really make me enjoy reading it. I kept finding myself trying to skip ahead to finish.

In Rouge we follow the tale of Mirabelle who, after the unexpected death of her mother, travels to her mother’s home for the funeral and to tie up her affairs. Once there, however, Mirabelle finds herself attracted to the mysterious Rouge - what she understands to be a facility for skincare treatments; only later does Mirabelle begin to uncover their nefarious agenda.

Mona Awad tells this story in a way that only she can. From the rich, gothic setting; to the increasingly surreal and dark happenings around our protagonist, I was hooked from the very beginning until the very end of Rogue.

A frequent comparison I’ve read about Rouge is Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut. Before I read the book, I wondered what that would look like, but it makes perfect sense.

Rouge is about grief, beauty, motherhood, power. Awad cleverly examines the aesthetic values held by society and the impact this can have. And, as someone who has gone through stages of varying degrees of skincare obsession, I love the way she highlights the flawed foundations of a growing industry and those that constantly promote it.

I read and loved Bunny; I loved Rouge even more. I can’t wait, now, to read her other works and anything else that she might publish in the future. Any Mona Awad title is now a must read for me.

This was wild from start to finish. After only having read one of Mona’s other works, I only had a slight idea of what to expect - and I was blown away!