*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 MASSACHUSETTS BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION*
*INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*
*USA TODAY BESTSELLER*
A New York Times Editors' Choice
One of:
CBC Books “Best Fiction of 2023”
Electric Lit's “Best Novels of 2023”
Praise for Rouge:
“A surrealist take on the myth of Demeter and Persephone. . . . Rouge points to many discomforting truths about being a woman in the 21st century, which can sometimes feel an awful lot like gothic horror. Awad doesn’t let us off the hook in our willingness to consume and be consumed, in our inability to see beyond our glass coffins.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“[A] delightfully twisted fairy tale. . . . [Awad]’s acerbic wit radiates in this excoriating story of beauty’s ugly side.”
—Publisher's Weekly
“Rouge plays with horror and humor in a surreal, gothic tale about a mother-daughter relationship that is also a biting satire on the beauty industry.”
—The Guardian, “Fall’s Most Anticipated Reads”
“Mona Awad’s seductive fourth novel looks at the complicated relationships between mothers, daughters, and their mirrors. . . . [Rouge is a] surreal gothic tale.”
—Time, “36 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023”
“An edgy fable on the perils of our modern fascination with beauty.”
—Vogue
“Awad’s latest is a dreamy (or perhaps nightmarish) gothic fairy tale about a mother, a daughter, and their shared obsession with their own beauty. Like all of Awad’s novels, it reels you in, shakes your brain until you’re not sure what you’re seeing, and then floats off cackling on a cloud of smoke. Metaphorically, that is. I’d forgive you for not being sure.”
—LitHub, “Most Anticipated Books of 2023”
“[A] hypnotic tour de force. . . . Awad approaches the increasingly well-trod ground of sinister wellness gurus with aplomb, creating an atmosphere of creeping discomfort and surreality right from the start. This is the stuff of fairy tales—red shoes, ballrooms, mirrors, and thorns but also sincerity, poignancy, and terror.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Surreal, archetypal, and totally hypnotic.”
—Bustle, “The 35 Best New Books of Fall 2023”
“Mona Awad, I will read everything you ever write. She is a writer of unbelievable talent.”
—Tor
“With Rouge you get everything a Mona Awad novel promises, and more. Sparkling dialogue, unforgettable narrative voice, twisted humour and irony injected with flawless results. This is a wild ride of a book. . . . Fast-paced [and] magical.”
—Jenny Heijun Wills, author of Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.
“At a time in history when beauty routines drain souls and time, Mona Awad has fashioned a smart, page-turning mystery about a young woman besotted by all things skincare. In elegant prose, Rouge digs through the tormented love that can both bind and estrange a mother and her daughter, and a body from a deeper self. Awad is one of those literary juggernauts to read every word of. Rouge is a triumph, deep and riveting, profound and terrifying. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liar’s Club and Cherry
“Rouge is a fever dream—a brilliant, intense, unforgettable horror story about a beauty cult with a deeply moving mother-daughter story at its core. Mona Awad’s signature and singular imagination and black humor and empathy are on full display here, and her wild-ride of a tale is masterfully grounded in the emotional devastation of childhood and grief. I loved every word of this.”
—Laura Zigman, author of Small World
“There is nobody else like Mona Awad, daring enough to plunge her hands—rings and all—into the viscera of story and discover an unsettling beauty within. Rouge is her most magnetic work yet, a thrilling dystopian romp that knows that beneath the glossy, aspirational veneer of self-care lurks the same old gothic abyss.”
—Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
“A brilliant, biting critique of western beauty standards as well as a soaring, phantasmagoric, Angela Carter-esque fairy tale about trauma and the loss of self. Rouge is deeply unsettling, funny, obsessive, and unlike anything I've read. A truly mesmerizing read.”
—Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts
“Unsettling, whimsical, and moving, Rouge is an authentic, innovative kind of narrative magic that’s both surreal and absolute. A striking novel of incandescence and heart.”
—Iain Reid, bestselling author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Foe
“Mona Awad uses the central mother-daughter relationship to unpack whiteness, wealth, age, and complex family dynamics, all within a fairytale dream atmosphere that lingered with me long after I turned the final page.”
—Electric Lit
“The beauty—pun intended—of Awad’s fascinating literary experiment lies in her lyrical, almost dreamlike use of language and in her employment of archetypal symbols to illustrate a very modern fairytale. . . . The trancelike, rhapsodic language and deepening atmosphere of unreality make for a narrative that oozes with unease. The sense of threat is palpable, and Awad handles her material with enthusiasm, imagination and a refined knowledge of her sources.”
—The Guardian (UK)
