Rouge

A wild ride.

This book does so much (and successfully). It is: a satire/critique of the beauty industry and especially the online culture around skincare/anti-aging, a pager-turner thriller/mystery, a unique and original magical realism tale, a compelling narrative about grief and loss, a story of a complicated mother-daughter relationship, and in some ways also a coming-of-age story. There is just so much going on, and yet it all works.

Similarly, Mona Awad manages to make references to a vast number of stories and myths, and yet each one has something sneaky and subtle (or sometimes not-that-subtle) to add if you catch it. Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Egyptian and Greek mythology, the Snow Queen, Bluebeard, The Little Mermaid, the Wizard of Oz....among others.

As the novel progresses, wordplay and creative use of language becomes an important part of it (the reasons are a spoiler), and that aspect is done well, adding humour and meaning.

At no point while reading this did I have any idea what was going to happen next. And all I will say about the ending is that it was satisfying!

Having read Mona Awad's first novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, I was not surprised to meet another socially-distant, self-absorbed, and obsessive main character in Rouge. But while I found her debut novel well-written but a bit overly bitter and abject (for my personal preference), Rouge has more poetry, wit, humour, and lightness which make for a much more captivating read. The darkness, societal critique, and satire are if anything made stronger by these contrasts.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the digital galley copy of Rouge. All opinions in this review are my own. :)