3.75 stars

Mona Awad's Rouge tackles the horrors of the beauty industry and how racist and toxic it can be, in this muddling story of obsession and envy and the relationships between mothers and daughters. It's a very cleverly crafted tale with an unreliable narrator which makes the plot dizzyingly confusing at times, but that ends up working in favour of the book. Very weird and disturbing, I found myself being unsettled by my reflection after I read this.

The writing is also really good, bordering on lyrical which works to highlight the dreamy nature of whatever breakdown the MC is going through. My favourite thing was probably Belle (the protagonist) and her relationship with her mother. It was twisted and fucked up but at some moments tender, but felt so so real and wrought with tension. It worked as brilliant plot fuel. What I didn't enjoy very much was the random romance subplot that was shoved in for no reason. It did make the last scene very striking and aesthetically charming but other than that I felt like the book could have stood well on its own.

This was my first book by Mona Awad and it was a pretty promising read. I am adding her backlist to my to-read shelf because I love books that focus on intense and complicated relationships between people and I feel like Rouge was brilliant at that.

First book read in 2024 and it did not disappoint!