Through a series of slow reveals and increasingly twisted internal monologue, Mona Awad delivers one of the spookiest books of the year in her new horror novel, Rouge. This incredibly dark book takes us into the mind of Belle, a young woman who has a complicated relationship with both beauty and her mother. After her mom, Noelle, dies under mysterious circumstances, Belle returns to the town she once abandoned to attend the funeral and set her mother’s affairs in order.
What she ends up finding, however, is a spa (named Rouge) dedicated to beauty that can be far more accurately described as a cult. Belle slowly ingratiates herself with the members, undergoing free “procedures” that cause her to become more and more confused and forgetful. Belle is a perfect candidate—she has spent her entire life desiring beauty, spending hours watching videos on how to make her Egyptian skin lighter, more flawless, more perfect. She spends hours each morning and night completing rituals that make her face burn and eyes water all in the name of beauty. Of course she would take up this spa on her offer for free treatments.
Awad never once fully explains the mystery of Rouge. Much of what happens inside the spa is magical in nature and hints at some supernatural element. There were times when I thought all of this was just happening inside of Belle’s head rather than in real life, but by the end of the novel I have forsaken that theory in favor of the more obvious one. Rouge has magical powers, and that’s all there is to it.
While the lack of complete answers on how the magic works and whether it really is magical at all would normally frustrate me, the fact that Rouge is just a conduit for exploring Belle’s emotional state made it okay. It’s as if Awad considered writing either a culty horror novel or a slow-moving therapy exploration before deciding to combine them into one. We move backwards and forwards through time, unlocking Belle’s childhood trauma at the same time we watch her dissolve into a shell of herself in the present. One review (which I can no longer find, please link it in the comments if you can) stated that this book is what doing acid feels like, and I couldn’t agree more.
Rouge is an incredibly slow paced novel, especially in the beginning, and you have to allow yourself to accept that. It might seem like we’re moving towards nowhere, but we are ultimately getting to where we need to go. Indeed, the slowness felt necessary to me in order to be submerged into Belle’s mindset once we got to the treatments and flashbacks.
This pacing meant that at times the commentary felt a bit heavy-handed. Awad used Rouge to make a statement on beauty standards, whiteness as being synonymous with beauty, and both the societal and intergenerational wounds that lead to women being obsessed with their looks. It was a painful read, but the floaty, vivid way Awad wrote made it dreamy as well. This combination was fun for me, especially as an audiobook, but may not be for everyone. If you’re captivated by beautiful writing and mysterious, unexplained cults, you should put this book on your to-read list immediately.
I received an early audiobook copy of this book from the Libro.fm influencers program. All opinions are my own.
