Rouge is out now, 9/12! Thank you to the publisher for my ARC of this.

I went into this fully ready for it to be strange, and it did not disappoint. It was surreal, strange, and felt like a fever dream the whole time. I loved it. Mona Awad is so good at drip-feeding just enough detail, and I couldn't put this down because I wanted to know what was happening.

Rouge touches on topics such as mother-daughter relationships, society's beauty standards, grief, and colorism. Many of the interactions between Mirabelle as a child and her mother were difficult to read. Her mother was constantly making comments about Mirabelle's appearance/skin color and these things really stuck with her, to the point where she had an unhealthy obsession with skincare well into her adult life.

It's hard to say much else about the main beats of the story without giving paragraphs of explanation, so it's definitely worth a read for yourself. I think especially for people who enjoyed Bunny!

I was also very surprised to see that this had a somewhat feel-good ending. It wrapped up nicely, and there were even some touching moments between characters that I did not expect.