“Mirabelle, through the looking glass…”
- Book: ROUGE
- Location: La Jolla, Southern California
- Author: Mona Awad
When I was intrigued enough to take a punt on this NetGalley ‘Read Now’ offer, I did take note that the author’s previous book ‘Bunny’ was mentioned on several occasions. However, it wasn’t until I checked out a few of the reviews for ‘Rouge’, that I realised just how intrinsically linked everyone felt the two books to be. So I went into this one, almost hoping against hope that ‘Rouge’ would work okay as a one-off story. However, I needn’t have worried, as this is definitely a stand-alone novel unlike anything I have read before! – Let me try to explain…
…
Mirabelle is an only child, of mixed race parentage. Her dainty mother Noelle, being white with a French heritage, the complete opposite of her father, a sturdy of stature, swarthy skinned Egyptian, who had died when she was a small child, gifting Mirabelle only a gold bangle with an all-seeing eye as its centrepiece, to remember him by.
Noelle is obsessed with her facial appearance and her beauty regimen is exhaustive, time-consuming and often painful. Part of her envies Mirabelle’s swarthy good looks, whilst at the same time she still surrounds her daughter with a plethora of dolls, all with the same perfect English Rose beauty as she herself has, leaving Belle, as young as she is, always feeling that she never wholly meets with her mother’s approval. Noelle is also always looking for that big break, which will enable her to debut on the silver screen of Hollywood, to which end, Bella plays second fiddle to the long stream of men her mother entertains, whilst she is either left in the care of her grandmother, or alone in the house. Eventually, Noelle makes the decision to move to California and her plans initially don’t include Bella, who is sent to live with her grandmother on a permanent basis, with the promise that she will send for her daughter when she has made a name for herself.
When, some ten years later Noelle finally sends for Belle, it is an obsessed and almost unrecognisable mother who greets her, so changed is she in appearance. Her treatments at the exclusive and secretive, La Maison de Méduse, which fronts as a spa resort, have left her face an almost translucent white and unbearable to any exposure to bright light or sunshine, rather like the very spooky mannequins with which she has populated her exclusive dress boutique in downtown La Jolla. Belle is forbidden to enter her mother’s bedroom, so Noelle is distraught when, not only does Belle disobey her, but she also begins her own addiction to Marva’s online skin ritual programmes, watching the channel constantly, whilst Noelle can only try, albeit very half-heartedly, to persuade her of the potential harm she is inflicting on herself. When events spiral out of control, both Noelle and Belle are hospitalised and once again Belle is sent to her grandmother, this time ostensibly for recuperation. Thus another extended period of separation between mother and daughter begins.
Now an adult and having made her life in Montreal, Canada, working in an exclusive boutique there, Belle once again needs to make the journey to La Jolla, when the sudden and unexplained death of her mother is announced, taking with her, her now constant assortment of facial scrubs, washes and acids. It seems that her mother had however, fallen on hard times and Belle is faced with a mountain of debt to clear, a boutique which she no longer has any share of, as Noelle had already sold out to her partner, and an apartment which is sadly neglected and under the care of Noelle’s final gentleman companion Tad, who does offer to help Belle fix up the place ready for sale.
It is soon apparent that Noelle had been clandestinely continuing to visit the ROUGE cult at La Maison de Méduse, where, according to those that knew her well, the treatments had not only continued to wreak havoc with her facial features, but had also affected her mind, to the point where all sense of reason and reality had ceased to exist. Against her better judgement, Belle also finds herself inexorably drawn to the mansion at the top of the cliff and is welcomed as one of the chosen few to receive their treatments free of charge, because of the esteem in which they had held her mother. But, nothing in this life comes for free and Belle is soon entranced and under the spell of this coven of strange and eerie characters, where the final leg of her transformative journey finds her having to make sacrifices she is unwilling to contemplate, but where rebellion is not to be countenanced at any price!
Can Belle escape their clutches and bring down the final curtain on this dangerous charade?
…
OMG! This book by new to me author Mona Awad, is so difficult to describe, so just how does one go about shoe-horning it to fit into any single genre, let alone having the temerity to believe that any review I write could truly reflect the multitude of emotional nuances contained within its pages? I am totally out of my depth and comfort zone, as ROUGE is just so far removed from any of my usual reading genres, therefore I can only base my rating on how the storyline and the style of writing made me feel. Dark horror is definitely a plentiful element in this work of metaphysical fiction (a new to me sub-genre which I needed to look up), mixed with some deadly gothic fantasy and a desperately grim take on a traditional fairy tale. Weave into all those elements the coercive and seductive nature of some very damaging social media, consciously meant to target the vulnerable; mix with the surreal, weird and eerie goings on behind the closed doors of an exclusive, yet far-reaching cult; add the already precariously distanced relationship between a mother and daughter, where the tenuous hold they both have on reality, is strained far beyond its limits and there you have the perfect cocktail for the disaster which inevitably presents itself.
Alongside this Mona Awad has written commentary which on a more serious note, intentionally holds the feet to the fire of unscrupulous companies and online influencers (apparently known as skinfluencers), loosely described as beauty and wellness specialists, where obsession with perfection is encouraged, even though it is seldom attainable and where self-worth, self-loathing, low esteem and insecurities, are exploited to the full.
I found the writing frightening and rather ‘off the wall’, yet totally beguiling and addictive, with the overwhelming importance of red, white and black colours, dominating the narrative and worming its way into my brain as I read. Narrated exclusively by Mirabelle herself, this dual timeline story is set mostly in the present day (2016), laced with intermittent extracts from various periods throughout her younger life leading up to and dovetailing with, current events. Mirabelle’s memories of her childhood seem sketchy and her thoughts are often far from cohesive, only becoming clearer as the story progresses, which made that coming together of past and present, so much more satisfying, when I realised that I wasn’t as far wide of the mark in my initial thinking as I had assumed.
Yet another book where I couldn’t really relate to, or become invested in, any of the characters and I really did want to feel something for Mirabelle and Noelle. Mirabelle was someone I at first thought was very shallow, only concerned with her appearance and getting one over on her mother; but who, I ultimately came to realise, had feelings which went so much deeper and encompassed multiple conflicting emotions, many of which didn’t become fully apparent to me until almost the end of her journey, which was all too little, too late. However, I believe the revelations she experienced in those final couple of chapters, were definitely going to change her and make her a better person going forwards. Hopefully a lot kinder to herself and able to understand and forgive her mother’s shortcomings as a parent, whilst accepting that the love between them had never truly been lost, but simply buried deeply within themselves, along with the constant pain of separation, for far too long to break free. Noelle was perhaps the easier of the pair to understand, although for me there could never be any excuse for shunning then deserting a child who has lost one of its parents no matter what the circumstances. The complicated mix of love and loathing she feels for Mirabelle appears to have warped her mind, making her a susceptible candidate for the attention of a very unscrupulous organisation which has played on her vulnerabilities, making the separation from her daughter a background issue over which she has no control.
Both mother and daughter were unapologetically and very deliberately manipulated and taken advantage of, by a supporting cast of duplicitous, controlling and malevolent characters, whose true motives never really became apparent to me, for which I apologise to the author if my shortcomings were obvious to everyone else. They were described in full colour, freakish detail and I seemed to spend most of my time trying not to become too transfixed by them and sucked into their depraved and dangerous world.
That this story was set in a real physical location satisfied the ‘armchair traveller’ instinct in me. However, in reality it was really neither here nor there, as the action could have taken place just about anywhere, with neither time nor place being relevant to the plot. Overall, author Mona Awad used the full palette of words at her disposal to convey an atmosphere which was seductive, claustrophobic and cloying, which was all too easy to become immersed in, no matter how much against my better judgement or will, yet almost impossible to escape from, at least in one piece and without being broken either physically, mentally, or both. It’s like a bad dream you can’t wake up from, but nevertheless, you can’t stop reading!
A great selection for a book club discussion read.
You scared the bejesus out of me, Mona, but I love you for it!
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