What is Rouge?

Rouge is the roses from snow white and beauty and the beast. Rouge is the god of the underworld (no, Seth) marking you as you dream of Tom Cruise. Rouge is immortality achieved through beauty. Rouge is your regimented twelve step skincare routine. Rouge is a little jellyfish, gently pulsing in an aquarium. Rouge is having beautiful sin - I mean skin, why would I say sin?

In short, this book was great. It lent itself amazingly to audio, as it was a first person narrative that played with language and perception. We were in the mind of Belle, a young Montreal woman with a complicated relationship with her late mother. Both obsessed with beauty and skincare, both serving as each other's bizarre twisted mirrors.

I have a lot of thoughts about this book and look forward to filming my November wrap up and getting some of them out. As a note to self, I want to touch on two complimentary interpretations of Seth. The short version: this book leaves us to make up our minds about what really happens, and that's both fun and frustrating. But it's definitely memorable.

Recommended if you enjoyed Mona Awad's other descents into madness (or just enjoy experiencing narrators lose their gosh darn minds), mixed metaphors, and don't mind repetition in your fiction. 4 very solid stars.