Rouge by Mona Awad – Review & Analysis

Format: eBook/Print
Read: November 2024, December 2024, January 2026

I have read this book three times! Between November and January 2024, I read it through twice as an eBook, thinking I’d write up a close reading review of it for this blog… and never got around to it. So I had to re-read it in December 2025 so that I could write this review, at long last. It was important to me to finally get this written because I love Mona Awad’s writing, I particularly love doing close readings of her work, and I’ve not got this book out of my head. In fact, it became more relevant to me as, between 2024-2025 I actually dipped my toe into the world of skin care, which on my first (and second) readings I was only vaguely aware of.

Every time I read this book, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and gave it another star! So yes, my first reaction was 3 stars because I just didn’t relate to the skin care aspect of it, the second time I picked up more of the motifs and themes, and the third time my mind was blown by everything Mona Awad layered together.

It’s incredible to me that I read this book three times in two years and found something new to appreciate about it every time. There are very few authors who can do that for me.

It might also have helped that my third read of this was in paperback and my first time I’ve properly made the effort to annotate a physical book, and I do think that helped me engage more closely with the text and the act of highlighting literally highlighted for me the clever use of language, and how Mona creates such incredible, visceral, seductive and intoxicating prose.

So here I am, two years later and very excited to finally sit down and write up my close reading of Rouge by Mona Awad!

Summary and Plot

Rouge tells the story of the skincare-obsessed Mirabelle as she processes her mother’s death. When she travels from her home in Montreal to her mother’s home in California for the funeral and to deal with her debts, she becomes entangled with the same beauty cult that had her mother acting so strangely before her death. This journey to become her Most Magnificent Self will both answer and raise questions from her childhood.

This is a book about grief, the predatory nature of the beauty industry, and how its damaging messages can be carried down the generations.

And of course, because this was written by Mona Awad, this story is weird!

Past this point, there are a lot of spoilers for this book!

Ok, so if you’re still here, you are happy to read spoilers.

Characters

Mirabelle Nour

I am obsessed with the names in this book! Her name is inspired, and it works on several levels. “Mirabelle” means something like ‘wonderous to look at’, and we learn that despite her insecurities she is strikingly beautiful. In her adult Montreal life, she goes by “Mira”, which obviously sounds like “mirror” in English, but also has meanings in many different languages, including ‘ocean’ in sanskirt which is also thematically appropriate. As a child, she went by Belle, which means ‘beautiful’ in French and is also a popular Disney princess, and there are numerous references to Disney and fairytales in this book, with red roses being a motif.

Nour is also important, especially as her Egyptian father’s surname. Belle was told by her Egyptian school teacher (where she grew up in Canada) that it means “divine light.” However, especially with Mirabell’s mother being of French descent, and the word sounds like the French word for black, it perfectly demonstrates the conflict in her dual cultural and racial identities, plus plays into the recurring motif of light being good and beautiful, and dark being undesirable and ugly.

Ms. Said is the one who told me my last name, Nour, means “divine light,” did I know that? I thought Nour meant something dark like the French word for black. Noir, Nour, a lot of French people get it confused, including Grand-Maman. Nour, Ms. Said said. Looks like “night” but means “light,” remember that. 

I would not describe Belle as likeable, like all Mona Awad’s protagonists, her insecurities and pain are often shown in her harsh judgements of others, especially other women. She is extremely rude about other women who do not subscribe to the rules of beauty (particularly poor Sylvia). Belle is driven by insecurity and envy, and it isn’t until the very end of the book that she demonstrates any empathy or kindness to others. I found her to be less sympathetic than Samantha in Bunny or Miranda in All’s Well, but by the end, the expression of grief she is finally able to release choked me up.

Noelle Des Jardins

The fact that Belle and her mother have such different names, which, to the average English speaker or French speaker (they originally live in the province of Quebec), will evoke such different images, is one of the elements that informs her self-image growing up. An idea of herself which is always in relief to how she sees her mother.

Mother’s name means “of the gardens.” No one looks at Mother’s name with narrowed eyes or says it like a question. Noelle Des Jardins, they say, and I know they see a beautiful snowy garden like I do. Her face offers a picture. The red of her lips and blue of her eyes like flowers poking out of the white. 

Noelle was a pale, redheaded, fine-boned French beauty, while her daughter inherited her father’s Egyptian dark skin, heavier features and coarse hair.

We only really know Noelle from Belle’s perspective (save a few comments from Sylvia and Tad), and mother and daughter have a difficult relationship fueled by their insecurity and jealousy. We do know that Noelle passed down her vanity and obsession with beauty, and seemed to regret this as she grew older and realised the damage she had done to her daughter and their relationship. This shifting perspective was not enough to save herself, though, as she was a paying customer of La Maison de Meduse who walked through the doors voluntarily.

Hud Hudson

He is a relatively minor character in the grand scheme of things, but he’s a bloody weird one, so I want to talk about him and try to make sense of it.

Hud Hudson – again, fantastic name – is, at least according to him, a private detective investigating La Maison de Meduse after his twin brother fell victim to them, in the same way as Noelle did. Belle first notices him staying at the same hotel as her after the funeral, as he is handsome in an Old Hollywood way, described as resembling the actor Monty Clift from the black and white films her mother was obsessed with. I looked up Monty Clift, and he has quite the tragic story, including a car accident that left him facially disfigured.

Belle sees Hud again, in a hilariously over-the-top disguise, at La Maison.

I’m dancing with a man. Tall. Blond hair, blond beard, and muttonchops that don’t quite match his tawny face. Monocle over one gray eye.

I mean, I loved this; it made me laugh every time he had a disguise on. It reminds me of Gene Parmesan from Arrested Development.

The story that he tells Belle about his twin brother may not be the whole truth. There are signs that he has been on the same path as Belle. She recognises the smell of skincare products on his skin – which, as in the quote above, is ‘tawny’ – and he has a scar, as Belle does. The scar could be explained as the result of his twin brother attacking him, per the story he tells, but given the fact that he keeps a mirror covered, it could also mean that the story is the other way around, and Hud was the one who hurt his brother.

“Why is that mirror covered with my dress?” “It’s drying under the heating vent. Also, that mirror is hostile. Some mirrors are, as I’m sure you know.”

I go back and forth on this one, but I think it is clear that either Hud or his twin brother were “seeded” just like Belle was by a dark creature in the mirror, and it got one of them to hurt the other. Of course, as twins, growing up in the same environment, it would make sense that they’d both be equally susceptible to the enchantment of the beauty cult. The other possibility is that the “twin” could have just been Hud’s own dark reflection?

Towards the end of the book was this passage that made me think that he had walked a similar path to Belle.

We all have our demons, don’t we? I looked at his scar catching the fiery light from the window. Sunset, it must have been then. And what are your demons, Detective? He smiled. Let’s just say I’m not invulnerable to our friends. To the Depths. That I’ve had my moments of temptation. I still do, he said, stroking my face. And as he looked at me then, I felt a pang. Deep in my chest. Of I know, I know. I, too, have been in those shadow places, those basement places.

He does, however, seem to genuinely care about Belle and has been sincere in his intentions to save her. When she finds him at the end of the book, he has The Glow and is dancing in the water with the mannequin that he believes to be her. The irony is that, after she was saved by her mother, it’ll be Belle that saves him and brings him back to himself with the empathy and kindness that she has been shown by Sylvia and even Tad.

Themes & motifs

The beauty industry

The predatory nature of the beauty industry as a whole is satirised through literal soul-eating vampires, but more specifically, the cult-like world of skin care is the target. Does anyone remember when the celebrities were all getting “vampire facials”?

Vampires

So yeah, they’re vampires. Not your regular blood-sucking vampires, these want to eat your soul to prolong their own lives and keep them beautiful. The more pained and traumatised your soul is, the better. They cast their net wide to attract as many people to their cult as possible. Some will be paying customers who won’t be negatively affected, but others will be drained of their memories and their very selves.

“Of the intergenerational variety, no less. Repressed as we like it best. And chock-full of our very favorites.”

Some of the vampires, like Seth, will sow seeds in vulnerable young children in the hope they will grow up into Perfect Candidates, issues that make them most susceptible to the cult and ripe with pain. Noelle, we learn was full of such issues, and they were excited to harvest her, but she died before they could because the effects of the procedure to remove painful memories leave a person so confused and delusional that they can easily wander into danger. Belle herself is a Perfect Candidate thanks to her childhood loneliness and envy, exacerbated by Seth’s visits, and because she inherited her mother’s issues, she is also able to harvest her soul along with her own.

Those who visit Rouge and who undertake their procedure are willing to sacrifice their memories, their very selves, to the pursuit of so-called beauty. In doing so, they lose everything unique about them, and they all become the same.

Eradication and pain

There are very long lists of skin care products in this book, in the many descriptions of Belle’s lengthy ritualistic routines, which she does even before she is affected by the cult. Some of what she uses actually causes her pain, which makes her believe they work better. We’ve all heard that phrase: “Beauty is sacrifice.”

The first time I read, I was astounded to find that they were all either real or named extremely closely to read products. This includes the mad or gruesome-sounding things like snail mucin, chokeberries, cloud jellies, resurrection serum, or Iso-Placenta Shield. These are all things you can buy to put on your face. These are all real products you can buy to rub on your face.

I had the Universal Brightening Peel Pads and the Overnight Glycolic Resurfacing Matrix and of course, the triple-exfoliating Lotion Magique, a cult French elixir that’s still illegal in some countries—the one with the banned ingredient that reeks of sulfur and numbs your face. I also had the infamous blood-colored Eradikating Ambrosia, which smells like turpentine and looks like fresh goat placenta. Each night I rub one or more on my face with a cotton pad, and my skin screams beautifully. Goes an unholy red. I watch it burn in the mirror while an animal scent, a smell of sacrifice, fills the bathroom like smoke.

Since I have ventured to the skin care aisles of my local Boots myself, and been horrified, overwhelmed and ultimately depressed by the sheer overwhelming amount of bullshit that is available for purchase for as much money as you are willing to spend. My Boots has 4 huge aisles of options, which doesn’t include the counters for the fancy stuff, where you have to talk to the saleswoman because it’s more than £50 a pot.

Race and duality

The book is dripping in the language and marketing jargon of skin care, really highlighting how racist or anti-colour it is. Everything is brightening, lightening or purifying. Eradicating colour. At the most extreme, Belle observes other candidates at the spa with facial features that suggest they are not ethnically white, but whose skin is now bright white with The Glow of beauty. In the parlance of Rouge, to be your Most Magnificent Self is to be bright white.

There’s another woman with me in the room. She’s beautiful. Her dark skin glows in the dim light. Her eyes are pale. Maybe she’s mixed too. Ethnically ambiguous, as Mother might say. Where are you from? I would ask this woman if I didn’t fucking hate that question myself. The way Mother would answer for me, smile and say Egypt, right as I said Montreal. 

Along with her dual names, Mirabelle is mixed race, always between cultures but never really growing up with full knowledge of either, as such, she always feels on the outside, never understanding who she is. Her mother is French, and her father was Egyptian; her mother is pale white, and her father had dark skin. Her mother seemed to fetishise her Egyptian side and use it as a costume (scarab beetle jewellery, fucking Walk Like An Egyptian by The Bangles), something exciting and exotic, without ever developing any genuine interest in this side of Belle’s heritage. Belle always appears to be offended by this without being able to put it into words.

Yet at the same time, her mother often repeats, “That Egyptian blood saves you. I’m another story.” I was never entirely sure what to make of this, but since her mother was so shallow about everything else, I am inclined to think she just meant that darker skin, with more melatonin, has more natural protection from damage from the sun’s rays and tends to show signs of ageing more slowly. I am sure it is also deliberate that Noelle’s nickname for her daughter was “sunshine.”

There are also other dualities at play in the novel: her mother having her speak English while her Grandmother insists on French, Grand Maman is very religious but Noelle is not, Belle is her mother’s daughter and her rival, Belle was ugly and then beautiful, ‘Tom Cruise’ and Seth, and there are three sets of twins mentioned (college friends, vampires at Rouge, Hud and his brother).

Fairytales and Hollywood

You cannot miss all the references to Disney movies, fairytales, and Hollywood, both new and old. They are present in this book as skin care products. The opening passage is:

She used to tell you fairy tales at night, remember? Once upon a time. When you were a sad, dreamy little girl. Each night you lay in your princess bed, surrounded by your glassy-eyed dolls, waiting for her like a wish. Tick, tick went the seconds on your Snow White clock.

I just love how Mona Awad writes. There is so much atmosphere in those sentences!

The beauty ideals that we hold come from the media that we consume. As children, this was Disney fairytale movies, and all those princesses were white, including namesake Belle from Beauty and the Beast (1991), until Jasmin in Aladdin in 1992, the very character our Belle gets a job playing at Disneyland, while at college. There was no black princess until Tiana in The Princess and the Frog in 2009!

Sadly, these days, as Disney finally started to make movies about more diverse characters, the media situation is even more dangerous; now, young girls are spending their time watching skin care videos on TikTok and requesting expensive products meant for adults instead of toys. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more dystopic than those videos.

A narrow bed where I lie each night curled around my laptop like it’s a fire, like it could actually warm me. Watching Marva’s face talk to me about my own face until my eyes close.

As an adult, Belle spends her time watching skin care videos on YouTube, her favourite Marva being a pale white woman who resembles her mother.

Noelle was an aspiring actress and obsessed with Old Hollywood movies and strove to emulate the style and glamour of those stars. Of course, the old black and white movies were heavily lit, heavily made up and used soft lenses that gave the stars an ethereal, smooth white glow that they wouldn’t have had in real life.

Belle, as a child, had a crush on Tom Cruise, which is why Seth takes his form when he first visits her in the mirror. Tom Cruise is an interesting choice because he was apparently the inspiration for Aladdin’s character design.

Jellyfish and roses

Ok, so what is with the jellyfish? Like everything else in the novel, I think there are multiple meanings for the jellyfish, which are a recurring motif and literal creatures in the story! In Belle’s memories of her childhood, she often uses imagery of the ocean and jellyfish when recalling Tom/Seth, or picturing her thoughts as being like fish swimming in her mind.

Firstly, they are ethereal and mysterious creatures that are beautiful but can also be deadly, like vampires. There are also red varieties to go with the branding of the Rouge cosmetics, red blood and the red roses etc. There is an ‘immortal’ species of jellyfish, called the T. dohrnii, which gets as close to cheating death as is possible. It is also worth noting that méduse is French for jellyfish, i.e. La Miason de Méduse.

Many skin care products are also branded as being sea-based. As already noted, there are numerous “jellies” you can get for your face, as well as kelp, sea salt etc. There is also something about the undulating movement of the jellyfish that evokes an emotional flow, like a beating heart. When you consider that this is also a book about grief, I think that is quite a beautiful image.

As for the roses, I think there are more obvious relations to the themes. They’re often a symbol of beauty and romance, but they have sharp thorns, red is danger and blood, and the red rose is integral to Beauty and the Beast.

I have to say the image on the book cover for Rouge is one of the best I have ever seen at evoking the vibe of the book. It’s absolutely perfect.

Also on the subject of the sea, there is the character of Tad and his obsessive cleaning of Noelle’s windows so that she has the clearest view of the ocean – or perhaps a cleaner window gives a better reflection? Tad is described as looking like a merman, and that’s the logo he uses for his handyman business. I still don’t quite know what to make of this character!

Grief

This begins with Belle hiding in the bathroom, at the wake following her mother’s funeral, and from there the story only gets stranger with more and more surreal elements. It’s a weird book, and I think it could be easy to miss the more subtle elements of grief. Belle and Noelle had a tense, warped and then estranged relationship to each other as well as their own faces and bodies. Skin care is something they had in common, and is a routine that can be self-soothing as well as obsessive. Many of Belle’s moments of grief and the tears she sheds are disguised in the midst of application. Her eyes burn, her vision is misty, or her face is wet, she says, because of the products shes using. It was only on the second read that I realised that she is actually crying.

Look at me positively dripping with hydrating possibilities.

Later, when she begins to resemble her mother, she frequently describes her reflection – Mother – as looking upset. She may be beautiful, with the face she had always wanted, but whenever we get a glimpse of her reflection, even through her own eyes, she’s in emotional distress.

It is beautiful that in the end, Noelle did save Belle. Whenever she visits Rouge, she notices a jellyfish that seems to follow her around and pay special attention. We learn that this is the creature that the vampire put Noelle’s painful memories into, and it is this jellyfish that saves Belle in the end. The beach scene when they say goodbye to each other and, in many ways, actually see each other properly for the first time, was extremely moving.

Conclusions

I could definitely write more thoughts about this book, but I really do have to stop somewhere!

Mona Awad is an incredibly talented writer who is interested in themes that really resonate with me. I think of the three novels I’ve read from her, this is the weirdest one. It has the most overtly bizarre events that, on a first reading, can be confusing. The more closely I read it, the more I could appreciate just how tightly she’s woven this story and so carefully layered together themes and motifs that just work perfectly. Nothing is wasted. And I think about this book every time I use my daily $4.50 Simple Kind To Skin Moisturiser (it’s cheap and my skin likes it the best)!

I’m excited to see what she writes next!

You can read my thoughts on Bunny and All’s Well.