It happens that little girls watch their mothers get ready for some kind of outing, and in a little girl’s naive mind she might think, “Getting ready for what?” It also might happen that a little girl will be amused and/or scared by watching their mother’s face disappear under layers of cosmetics that alter skin tone, change facial contours, add directional lines to their lips and eyes which are supposedly windows to their soul..

I certainly watched my mom get ready in her many mirrored elegant bathroom. My mom might going to work, a date, or to play bridge with her friends. My mom transformed from being a natural beauty to striking. However, I never understood what the “ready part” was. Fascinated by the transformation of my mom, a former Miss Coastguard and fashionista, who knew how to dress and how to apply cosmetics as good as any glam-squad.

In this issue of Bookisshh, we examine a work by Mona Awad that looks at Mother/Daughter relationships, definitions and standards of beauty and beauty myths as practiced by the industrial complex of the beauty industry and beauty cults. In this little wonder of a book, author, Mona Awad collages aspects from Disney’s, Beauty and the Beast, Hans Christian Andersen’s, The Red Shoes and takes her readers on a somewhat violent magical mystery tour in California where people go to see, be seen and never seen again. Enjoy!

Mona Awad, the Author…

Awad is definitely a beneficiary of all the feminism waves that have preceded her publications. The first works of Awad’s I encountered, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl and Bunny, shifted paradigms and renamed feminist constructs for me. Good fiction provides for growth but after talking with several women my age and older, they expressed zero interest in the books written by Mona Awad.

Why don’t they like Awad? My guess is because Awad is unapologetic and boundary transcending as she takes her characters into situations that at first seem light or playful into super-raw and visceral that bond maniacal realities women can experience.

Additionally, Awad bends, blends and fractures feminist archetypes allowing women to be unreliable, unsympathetic, unsupportive and all the other un’s that women should not be seen as through a patriarchal lens. Awad’s arcana of archetypal gals, tales and representations push to the near-ridiculous, which for opened and expanded my imagination creating a new understanding for younger burgeoning feminists.

Reader be warned, but possibly be open, to witnessing how it’s possible to be female and dance to your own tune be it— a non-traditional beauty tune, fashion tune, or ways and mores tune. Awad’s characters are clearly unapologetic while blindly going about considering no blame on people or traditions that have formed the female status quo. This author invites her readers to question, poke a little, and seek change. Simply stated, Awad pulls back the curtain on the Beauty Industrial Complex who pray upon female consumers both young and mature.

The Storyline

Belle’s mother dies mysteriously and Belle returns from Canada to her childhood home base, Los Angeles, to settle her mother’s affairs and discover the cause(s) of her mother’s death. The unraveling of these things leads Belle to her mother’s pair of red shoes that walk her to a cliff-side mansion overlooking the ocean wherein a cannibalistic beauty cult feeds and consumes members. Awad inserts Snow White-esque mirrors that produce and transport demonic lovers and sugar baby lovers who whisper instructions for murder and how to achieve everlasting youth and beauty. In addition, Belle wrestles with a new owner and family friend who’s hijacked Belle’s mom’s dress boutique and gauzy self-discovery of Belle’s core issues hidden in basement buried boxes with relics that unlock Belle’s past. Belle turns from her pain that kept her far from LA in Canada to her mother’s pricey red jars and viles of mysterious hypnotic compounds sending her off to the cliff-side mansion where vampiric sea like creatures are trapped and feed off the innocent simply seeking to be seen and admired in ways that only a mother can bestow upon their child. Hopefully, this sums up the wild ride that you might encounter while reading, Rouge by Mona Awad.

In Sum…

If you have been following me for some time you might know that I don’t read fantasy or romance and likely I’ll continue not to, but Awad uses tools within these genres to create an otherworldly experience that seduces beauty freaks, spa goers, and cult followers. Awad exaggerates the lengths cults and/or brands go to indoctrinate and imprison its members. Readers be warned! You will never look at your serums, moisturizers and tinted bronzers the same way again! If you find yourself feeling squirmy or impatient keep in mind that Awad is using satire and being humorous as she is pokes at the stress-inducing, Beauty Industrial Complex, that rakes in millions from women until they’re lucky enough to be 80.

Lastly, Awad borrows from pre-existing popular culture.. There’s a lot of Tom Cruise references in this book—his movie plots and character roles. It also triggers thoughts of Scientology and its impact on rising, falling and failed stars, but it works. Clearest references go to, Eyes Wide Shut, An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun. Awad enlists Cruise as an evil love interest, and demon in disguise, which is an interesting choice nonetheless.

I never thought I’d be a Mona Awad completist, but the work challenges the reader. Awad’s giant imagination and social politics engage, enrage, and nurture a unique latent empathy in this reader. In so doing, Awad makes clear, how times have changed for women, and enables women to safely witness ridiculous iterations and tropes defining womanhood. Awad reminds her readers that women always have choices and opportunities to create new and different iterations of womanhood defining their own unique womanhood. According to author, Margaret Atwood, “Mona Awad is the next Margaret Atwood” and this astounded and motivated me to purchase a few of her books.

Content Warnings

Sensitive readers, please keep in mind, Mona Awad is a beneficiary of 4th Wave Feminism. This inheritance allows Awad to maintain an unapologetic stance as she interrogates the potential psychoses mothers can transmit to their daughters—be these psychoses intended or unintended. Awad asks readers to consider and perhaps amend how mothers teach daughters to be Women.

Content warnings for abuse are present but narrated in indirect manners and are quietly told. Emotional and physical negligence are unintended, but what Awad’s characters default to in their efforts to self-define and self-improve are clearly delineated for the sake of drama. It’s uncomfortable and necessary to extract the fullness of Awad’s exposition of the feminist lens and the impact of patriarchy on women’s well being. Awad doesn’t leave anyone off the table… She interrogates brands and manufacturers who create products for women, or content publishers who display women on screens or theme parks, and retailers who endorse trends, looks and brand cults digitally, on paper, and in brick and mortar settings. Rouge doesn’t take for granted the collective harm done to women. In this story this harm trickles down toward both mother and daughter.

Circle back and hit the comments if you read Mona Awad. Each book is very different than the next. Enjoy!