Rouge by Mona Awad
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
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.
Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.
I saw this book described as a “horror tinted, gothic fairytale” and I wholeheartedly agree with that exact description.
Except I would also add the word STRANGE.
Because this read was SUPER FUCKING WEIRD, yall.
The creep vibes were STRONG.
And while I generally enjoy strange/weird things, I don’t know for certain if I enjoyed the ride this took me on or not.
It kept my attention that is for SURE….but DANG.
I haven’t made sense of a lot of what I read….and still I am not exactly sure what the entire deal was….
There were these red jellyfish with eyes, there was this spooky cult like mansion/spa situation, there were strange people (beings?) who had very bizarre tendencies…plus there are all these Tom Cruise references…
Which actually kinda checks, I gotta say 🤣
(Because I mean…suspected cults and bizarre tendencies? Def could be words I associate with that man lol)
And the more you read, the more you understand why they are there…
But still.
WEIRD piece of it all.
Althought…underneath the strange story was commentary on obsession with beauty (ESPECIALLY Eurocentric standards) and covering up the aging process.
And not just women, might I add.
That was a piece of the story I TOTALLY “got”. (no surprise there, I’m sure 🤣)
I don’t really know what else to say on this one, my bookworm buddies…my thoughts are few and simple.
WEIRD AF.
Period.
If you’re wanting an offbeat, kinda creepy book with a little message thrown in, this just might be what you’re looking for.
If that ain’t your jam, I say DEF take a pass here and just move on to something else.