First Line Friday: Rouge by Mona Awad

Happy Friday everyone!  

Normally what a joy it is to wake up on a Friday knowing my weekend has begun.  However, today I am staring down the weekend before I go back to school on Monday, and Friday has never looked so bleak.  Of course, I love my job and miss my sweet students, but how glorious has it been to sleep in (wait is it 5:15 am?) and bake with my kids and bask in the glow of my Christmas tree lights. To read well past my bedtime and know that I won't be late in the morning because of it... Alas and alack, that is all over for now.  

I am currently reading Rouge by Mona Awad.  

I have to tell you, I was beyond excited for this book.  I had requested it on NetGalley and waited in anticipation... and nothing.  So I ended up getting it on Edelweiss past the publication date.  And... I hate it.  Okay, okay! I don't hate it, but I am really struggling to want to read it.  It is so slow and so confusing.  And why do they need to call her "Daughter of Noelle" and her mother "Mother."  I feel like I'm in Dude, Where's My Car? Which was my favorite movie when I was 12, but... 

Anyways, I was bound to be in a book hangover after reading Bright Young Women, which was absolutely amazing.  I'm powering through, though - hopefully it picks up!  The book does have rave reviews for the most part... (Maybe I just don't get it?) I'll keep you posted! And you keep me posted - have you read it? Does it get better? (Please tell me it gets better).

Either way, Rouge is my Friday read, so head on over to Reading Is My SuperPower and Rose City Reader to join in first line link ups! And then head over to
My Head is Full of Books for the Friday56.

 

GoodReads Description of Rouge by Mona Awad: 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.

First Lines: 

She used to tell you fairy tales at night, remember? Once upon a time. When you were a sad, dreamy little girl. Each night you lay in your princess bed, surrounded by your glassy-eyed dolls, waiting for her like a wish. Tick, tick went the seconds on your Snow White clock. The moon rose whitely from the black clouds. And then . . .

From page 56: 

Mother hated roses, I could tell Tad. For as long as I can remember. She even used to be allergic. I’m still allergic to cheap apologies, easy bribes, she always said. 

What book are you currently reading? Have you read Rouge? What did you think?