Rouge: A Novel

  • Author: Mona Awad
  • Narrator: Sophie Amoss
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Duration: 14:42:09
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Synopsis

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Time, Vogue, The Guardian, Goodreads, Bustle, The Millions, LitHub, Tor, Good Housekeeping, PureWow, Our Culture Mag, and more!

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?


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 Méduse, 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.

Chapters

  • 001 Rouge Open

    Duration: 13s
  • 002 Rouge Epigraph

    Duration: 23s
  • 003 Rouge Dedication

  • 004 Rouge Prologue

    Duration: 12min
  • 005 Rouge Part1 Chapter1

    Duration: 29min
  • 006 Rouge Chapter2

    Duration: 25min
  • 007 Rouge Chapter3

    Duration: 18min
  • 008 Rouge Chapter4

    Duration: 25min
  • 009 Rouge Chapter5

    Duration: 19min
  • 010 Rouge Chapter6

    Duration: 19min
  • 011 Rouge Chapter7

    Duration: 38min
  • 012 Rouge Part2 Chapter8

    Duration: 29min
  • 013 Rouge Chapter9

    Duration: 31min
  • 014 Rouge Chapter10

    Duration: 26min
  • 015 Rouge Chapter11

    Duration: 17min
  • 016 Rouge Chapter12

    Duration: 29min
  • 017 Rouge Chapter13

    Duration: 55min
  • 018 Rouge Part3 Chapter14

    Duration: 17min
  • 019 Rouge Chapter15

    Duration: 28min
  • 020 Rouge Chapter16

    Duration: 28min
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