michelle (travelingbooknerds)'s Reviews > Rouge

lrtc but immediate reaction: wow mona awad has done it again! what an absolute masterpiece? i have read everything mona awad has published thus far and even have 4 Bunny-inspired tattoos on my body and yet this mysterious gothic romantic drama about a young woman getting sucked into a beauty cult her late mother who died mysteriously was obsessed with when she travels to la jolla for her mother’s funeral might have become my favorite mona awad work to date. i cannot count the amount of times i cried reading this story, and so much of my hard copy i read along with as i listened to the audiobook is underlined, tabbed, and annotated. i absolutely loved the audiobook narrator’s performance, too. there’s a lot of wordplay throughout the story that is key to the progression of the plot that really is enhanced by an audiobook narration that i don’t think is as impactful with just reading a physical copy text and i really appreciated the immersive experience reading + listening gives me. the more senses i can drip in the story feasibly i will attempt to do so! wow just such a fun time but also a very masterful breakdown of how the beauty industry can be extremely scary and sinister under a pretty facade. absolutely brilliant work.