Scan barcode
A review by kendramichele
Rouge by Mona Awad
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
3.75
Brighten, revitalize, tighten, moisturize ... how far would you go for the glow?
This is the sort of book that's difficult to describe while avoiding spoilers, though I'll try!
Mirabelle has long been estranged from her mother when she flies from Montreal to California for her mother's funeral. Desperate to make sense of this sudden death, Belle soon stumbles into a cultish, underworldly spa where our heaviest memories are viewed as free radicals that limit and wither our beauty.
But can our memories truly be separated?
If beauty is an endless pursuit, how long until we become shells of our former selves?
I've seen others claim Rouge is an iteration of Snow White, or Beauty and the Beast, or the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Really, all three comparisons are fitting. Rouge reflects the beastlier side of beauty, our heightened envy, insecurity, and narcissism.
This book is soaked with symbolism, with a writing style unlike any other. Begin the descent into madness and soon you'll be questioning every paragraph and periphery character, sifting through the fractured realm of Mirabelle's mind. I especially loved the references to Egyptian mythology and the use of certain colors. One could walk away from the novel with several interpretations of what the metaphors represent.
I do think certain themes and characters could have been more fleshed out, in contrast to the novel's length. I also struggled with the pacing - the beginning is quite slow, the middle repetitive.
As a whole, this is an entrancing, dark tale that left me eager to explore Mona Awad's other works. Rouge offers something compelling for everyone as it touches on race, obsession, fraught mother-daughter dynamics, unobtainable beauty standards, life-altering grief, and long-hidden trauma.
This is the sort of book that's difficult to describe while avoiding spoilers, though I'll try!
Mirabelle has long been estranged from her mother when she flies from Montreal to California for her mother's funeral. Desperate to make sense of this sudden death, Belle soon stumbles into a cultish, underworldly spa where our heaviest memories are viewed as free radicals that limit and wither our beauty.
But can our memories truly be separated?
If beauty is an endless pursuit, how long until we become shells of our former selves?
I've seen others claim Rouge is an iteration of Snow White, or Beauty and the Beast, or the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Really, all three comparisons are fitting. Rouge reflects the beastlier side of beauty, our heightened envy, insecurity, and narcissism.
This book is soaked with symbolism, with a writing style unlike any other. Begin the descent into madness and soon you'll be questioning every paragraph and periphery character, sifting through the fractured realm of Mirabelle's mind. I especially loved the references to Egyptian mythology and the use of certain colors. One could walk away from the novel with several interpretations of what the metaphors represent.
I do think certain themes and characters could have been more fleshed out, in contrast to the novel's length. I also struggled with the pacing - the beginning is quite slow, the middle repetitive.
As a whole, this is an entrancing, dark tale that left me eager to explore Mona Awad's other works. Rouge offers something compelling for everyone as it touches on race, obsession, fraught mother-daughter dynamics, unobtainable beauty standards, life-altering grief, and long-hidden trauma.