Cover Image

Rouge a novel

"For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother's considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions...

Full description

Main Author: Awad, Mona (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York : Marysue Rucci Books, 2023.
Edition: First Marysue Rucci Books hardcover edition.
Subjects:
Mothers and daughters > Fiction.
Cosmetics industry > Fiction.
Mothers > Death > Fiction.
Estranged families > Fiction.
Mortality > Fiction.
California, Southern > Fiction.
Horror fiction.
Psychological fiction.
Summary: "For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother's considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother's demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de MeĢduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother's) obsession with the mirror--and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass. Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry--as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath"--
Physical Description: 372 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN: 9781982169695
1982169699
Author Notes: Mona Awad received a MFA in fiction from Brown University. She is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing and English literature at the University of Denver. Her work has appeared in several journals including McSweeney's, The Walrus, Joyland, Post Road, and St. Petersburg Review. Her first novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, was published in 2016.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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