Rouge was so crazy for me. It was written in a dreamlike quality, where nothing is certain and many things are oxymoronic. For example, I remember a line being “she smiles like she hates me.” (Read on audiobook so exact line is uncertain.)
Belle takes all the wrong decisions, putting herself deeper and deeper into this mysterious organization and ultimately going down the same path her mother took. I enjoyed the detail with skin care and the unsettling atmosphere of her skincare routine, and I also loved Belle’s mother as a character and her cutting but fashionable dress store. Even Tom Cruise, I enjoyed, though he threw me through a loop in the beginning. The characters in general were distinct and offputting. I loved Tad and the whorish cat Angelica!
I felt a little misled by the marketing. Rouge was described as writing about the cult-like beauty industry and the dangers about internalizing its gaze. I completely agree with the cult-like feeling of the beauty industry, as this book literally has a sort of memory eating cult in it, but I wish that beauty and ugliness was defined. Belle is described as beautiful by her mother and other adults in the book, but also ugly by her peers and by her own self. She describes herself as hairy and dark like her ogre father in the beginning, and I feel this is due to internalized racism, but this aspect is not reinforced with specifics throughout the narrative. Beauty is only defined in vague terms such as “white,” “lifted,” or in terms of skin itself being clear. There were seeds of racism dotted through the story, but it was not clearly tied in with any Eurocentric beauty standards like I expected. The narrative could’ve been just a little more cutthroat.
I also was left exiting the book with many questions about who Seth was or what he was. And what was his motive with trying to kill Noelle? Why did he think she was stealing Mirabelle’s beauty? I wish this was a bit more defined.
Edit: Okay another review said that Seth was a part of Egyptian mythology!!! Omg this brings a whole new layer I did not know, adding a rivalry between Belle’s father (Horus) and Seth. This deserves some further analysis.
All in all, I enjoyed this, but I wish there was more specificity.