ROUGE
National Bestseller
USA TODAY Bestseller
GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLER
TORONTO STAR BESTSELLER
New York Times Editor’s Choice
A most anticipated book of 2023 by Time, Vogue, The Guardian, Observer, Goodreads, Bustle, The Millions, LitHub, Tor, Good Housekeeping, PureWow, Our Culture Mag, and more!
An Editor's Pick for Best Literature & Fiction on Amazon
An Indie Next Pick for September
“Rouge plays with horror and humor in a surreal, gothic tale about a mother-daughter relationship that is also a biting satire on the beauty industry.”
~The Guardian, Fall’s Most Anticipated Reads
“Mona Awad’s seductive fourth novel looks at the complicated relationships between mothers, daughters, and their mirrors....[a] surreal gothic tale.”
~Time, “36 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023”
“An edgy fable on the perils of our modern fascination with beauty.” ~Vogue
"Billed as Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut, this sinister modern fairy tale from author Mona Awad (Bunny) introduces readers to the uncommonly creepy beauty spa known as La Maison de Méduse. Look for black humor, demonic aggression, and some uncomfortably detailed commentary on the essential cult-iness of the modern beauty industry." ~Goodreads, 55 Most Anticipated Books of Fall
“Awad’s latest is a dreamy (or perhaps nightmarish) gothic fairy tale about a mother, a daughter, and their shared obsession with their own beauty. Like all of Awad’s novels, it reels you in, shakes your brain until you’re not sure what you’re seeing, and then floats off cackling on a cloud of smoke. Metaphorically, that is. I’d forgive you for not being sure.” ~Lit Hub (Most Anticipated Books of 2023)
“[A] hypnotic tour de force… Awad approaches the increasingly well-trod ground of sinister wellness gurus with aplomb, creating an atmosphere of creeping discomfort and surreality right from the start. This is the stuff of fairy tales—red shoes, ballrooms, mirrors, and thorns but also sincerity, poignancy, and terror.” ~Kirkus (Starred Review)
“[A] delightfully twisted fairy tale… The author’s acerbic wit radiates in this excoriating story of beauty’s ugly side.” ~Publisher's Weekly
"Rouge is a brilliant, biting critique of western beauty standards as well as a soaring, phantasmagoric, Angela Carter-esque fairy tale about trauma and the loss of self. Rouge is deeply unsettling, funny, obsessive, and unlike anything I've read. A truly mesmerizing read." ~PAUL TREMBLAY, author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts
"There is nobody else like Mona Awad, daring enough to plunge her hands--rings and all--into the viscera of story and discover an unsettling beauty within. ROUGE is her most magnetic work yet, a thrilling dystopian romp that knows that beneath the glossy, aspirational veneer of self-care lurks the same old gothic abyss." ~ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like This and Something New Under the Sun
"Unsettling, whimsical, and moving, Rouge is an authentic, innovative kind of narrative magic that's both surreal and absolute. A striking novel of incandescence and heart." ~IAIN REID, author of I’m Thinking of Ending Things and We Spread
"Rouge is a fever dream—a brilliant, intense, unforgettable literary horror story about a beauty cult with a deeply moving mother-daughter story at its core. Mona Awad’s signature and singular imagination and black humor and empathy are on full display here, and her wild-ride of a tale is masterfully grounded in the emotional devastation of childhood and grief. I loved every word of this." ~LAURA ZIGMAN, author of Small World
All’s Well
An Indie Next Pick for August
A Best/Most Anticipated Book of Summer/2021:
O Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Goodreads, Vulture, LitHub, Refinery29, PopSugar, Good Housekeeping, The Glitter Guide, Boston.com, The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, NOW magazine.
A Best Book of August:
TIME Magazine, Bustle, Goodreads, Entertainment Weekly, CBC Books.
PRAISE for All’s Well
“Dear Readers: this is one wild book!” Margaret Atwood via Twitter
“Awad’s writing is not only intoxicating. It’s incandescent.” Nneka McGuire, THE WASHINGTON POST
“Sparkling…..A dream of a novel, perfect for a midsummer night’s read.” O MAGAZINE
“A darkly hilarious journey into the psyche of a woman approaching her breaking point.” TIME MAGAZINE
“A surreal exploration of chronic pain, women’s believability and visibility, and desperation as she straddles the line between comedy and horror.” NPR
“A stealthily captivating new novel that, like its namesake, skews more dark than light as it casts its spell.” THE BOSTON GLOBE
“A gripping and thought-provoking story about healing and redemption.” THE SEATTLE TIMES
“As in Awad’s last novel Bunny, things start off weird and institutional and then spiral into madness, and as in Bunny, the experience is a fiendish delight: funny, thrilling, and creepily recognizable.”—Emily Temple, LITHUB
“Mona Awad proves in her dazzling, hilarious, wildly terrifying, virtuoso new novel, All’s Well, the paradoxes and incongruities of Shakespeare’s lesser-loved play makes an ideal springboard for contemporary fiction.”—Christopher Bollen, INTERVIEW MAGAZINE
“A brilliant noir comedy about art and illness…. Awad’s characters are deliciously over the top and impossible to forget, as is the author's gift for morbid humor….Endlessly thought-provoking and not to be missed.”—BOOKLIST (starred review)
“Awad artfully and acutely explores suffering, artistry, and the limitations of empathy.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS
“There’s both pathos and humor in this story of how we suffer and the ways in which we’re healed.”—BOOKPAGE
“A mystical journey complete with spectral benefactors, mysterious curses and limitless magic. Something the Bard would’ve been proud of.” —Seth Combs, SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE
“Awad is a genius as she puts together a satirical narrative that is actually dark and solemn at its core.” PAPERBACK PARIS
“Imagine Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter traipsing through the dreamy creepiness of fairy tales while giving Shakespeare tips on female narratives.” —Elizabeth Mitchell, THE TORONTO STAR
“Awad is a dark genius, preternaturally gifted at creating vicious, hilarious tales about the depravity inside us.....A wicked mash-up about opioid addiction, Bard nerds, Faustian deals, and a cursed play? Yes, please.”—Hilary Kelly, VULTURE
“A dazzling wild ride of a novel – daring, fresh, entertaining, and magical. Mona Awad is a powerful and poetic storyteller, telling us something new and profound here about the connection between suffering and elation. When I was away from this book, I longed to get back to it."—GEORGE SAUNDERS, New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo
"Wild and exhilarating and so fresh it takes your breath away, All's Well is an utterly delicious novel of pain and vitality, Shakespeare and the uncanny, and our own subtle moral failures when we brush up against the pain of others. Mona Awad's talent is so vital that it absolutely roars out of her. "—LAUREN GROFF, New York Times bestselling author of Fates and Furies
"Oh my lord what a fabulous novel--knocked me out!"—MARY KARR, New York Times bestselling author of The Liars’ Club, Cherry, and Lit
“In this eerie and engrossing novel, Mona Awad deftly delivers a narrator as mesmerizing as she is unreliable. Miranda’s quest for her heart’s desires illuminates the complex bargains one woman dares to make in her most desperate moments. With its mordant humor and potent surreality, All’s Well is a gripping read, and Awad is a writer of great intensity and insight."—HELEN PHILLIPS, author of The Need
"For all my fellow right-thinking adoring readers of Bunny, another dark and insane gem from Mona Awad, full of scintillating insights on Shakespeare, pain, and the human condition.”—ELIF BATUMAN, author of The Idiot, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
"Tragic, macabre, and wicked. I laughed out loud the whole way through. One of the funniest books I’ve read in years."—HEATHER O'NEILL, author of The Lonely Hearts Hotel
BUNNY
An Indie Next Pick for June
"Every time I open it up, I stumble upon a crackling sentence." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Awad has proved herself one of the most innovative and original authors out there, and Bunny is a wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel." —Los Angeles Times
"A work of toothsome and fanged intelligence....wickedly hilarious." —The New Yorker
"Deliciously evil . . . Awad is a stone-cold genius." —The Washington Post
"Very funny and very sharp . . . An extremely readable page-turner." —NPR's "Weekend Edition"
"A dark, dazzling fairy tale . . . A touching story of true-versus-faux friendship that many women will relate to is at the heart of this novel, but fans of the occult will find plenty to love about the Bunnies' sci-fi-adjacent ritual experimentation. As if grad school needed to get any scarier." —Vogue, "The Best Novels of 2019"
"[One of] the most cerebral and compulsively readable books of the season . . . This compelling novel about a mysterious grad school clique draws a bit of inspiration from Mean Girls or Heathers...before long, the novel takes a turn into the surreal, applying the logic of a horror movie to its incisive exploration of cruelty between young women." —Vanity Fair
"A spiritual cousin to Stephen King’s Carrie . . . Bunny is a kind of pastel-toned goth lit, an examination of what happens when 'soft' femininity meets the tougher kind—but one that also recognizes how blurry the distinction can be." —TIME
"Wacky and delicious." —Lauren Groff, via Twitter
"With visuals so vivid, and a plot so weird and gripping that it’s already been snapped up to be made into a TV series, Bunny is a summer book, an escapist comedy, a beach read that you’ll want to pass around. But that’s only partly because it’s rollickingly, laugh-out-loud funny. What makes it memorable, and powerful, is the coupling of its go-for-broke sendup with an immense compassion . . . For all its dagger-sharpness, Bunny has a tenderly accommodating heart." —The Boston Globe
"It’s creepy and it’s kooky, mysterious and spooky, and you will not be able to put it down." —The Washington Post
"A surreal, darkly funny take on art, power, and female friendships." —Entertainment Weekly
"Like one of those razors marketed to women: you know, pink but still GD dangerous." —Elle
"To call this a dark comedy undersells the richness of its message, and to say it’s a satire misses its realism. Bunny is so sharp it will leave you bloody." —Vulture
"The weirdest novel you'll read this year . . . in the best way possible…With hints of Heathers and Mean Girls, I read Bunny in one night and was genuinely bummed when it was over." —Mehera Bonner, Cosmopolitan
"[A] dizzying tale of misandry, class anxiety, and psychological torment . . . Fans of sinister girl gangs, take heart!" —Harper’s Bazaar
"A dark, twisted novel that sharply interrogates women's relationships to one another and to art, academia, and class—it's the kind of book that leaves a taste in your mouth, the taste of blood. Who knew that would taste so good?" —Nylon
"Mona Awad’s prose is dangerous. She crafts beautiful meals laced with poison." —The Paris Review
"Mona Awad lets femininity bare its fangs." —The Toronto Star
"With notes of Scream Queens and Heathers, Bunny takes readers into a twisted, terrifying cabal." —Newsweek
"Strange, gothic and viciously entertaining." —The Irish Times
"Awad’s genius lies in her ability to take a familiar setup and turn it on its head—and then shake it and throw it off a cliff. That’s how twisted Bunny gets." —Purewow
"Tall, dark and culty." —TheSkimm
"If you’ve ever been the odd one out, read Bunny." —Refinery29
"The Vegetarian meets Carrie meets Mean Girls in this deliciously dark tale about toxic female friendships, academia and class." —BookRiot, "7 of the Buzziest Beach Reads of the Year
"[A] riotous, pitch-black novel . . . [Awad's] sheer panache powers you through the hilarious, hallucinogenic freakery." —The Daily Mail
"Gripping [and] unique." —InStyle
"The Secret History meets Heathers with a dash of Mean Girls. You’re gonna love it." —HelloGiggles
"[A] clever, contemplative, truly absurd campus novel that manages to strike to the truth of things with a hot blade of magic.” —LitHub
"Awad’s prose is compulsively readable, and Samantha’s voice sticks in one’s head....With this book, no axe or spell is needed: whatever ritual Awad did, Bunny came out just right." —Ploughshares
"[Awad] has a wicked sense of humor . . . The energy in her writing is truly infectious, and it’s a lot of fun to go with her down the rabbit hole." —Washington Independent Review of Books
"Bunny is the lovechild of Otessa Moshfegh’s Eileen and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History after a chance meeting at a midnight showing of Heathers . . . Dark but hilarious, quirky yet insightful, and at times just flat out weird, Bunny is the perfect anti-beach read for those of us who spend summer dreading the outside, opting to stay in burning scented candles with our curtains drawn and our white noise machine set to 'thunder storm.'" —Napa Valley Register
"[A] riveting and often funny tale about the dark side of female seduction." —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Gripping [and] frenetically readable . . . In this exploration of how women’s repressed rage and desires can manifest, Awad weaponizes cuteness in a ferocious and dynamic way . . . [She] artfully demonstrates what it’s like to attempt to be creative while drowning in the alienating and garish malaise that is being alive in our current cultural moment." —Quill & Quire
"Social acceptance, female friendship, the coming-of-age process . . . it's all ripe for the discussion here." —Bustle
"Astonishingly self-assured . . . Awad’s writing is somehow both gorgeous and gritty as she explores creativity, art and the universal desire to belong." —BookPage
"Full of Fight Club-level plot twists and sharp, biting humor; the novel is the perfect summer-to-fall transition read. Pro-tip: Convince a friend to do a buddy read because you’ll want someone to discuss it with after." —Girls Night In (Book Club Pick)
"A viciously funny bloodbath . . . Awad gleefully pumps up the novel's nightmarish quality until the boundary between perception and reality has all but dissolved completely. It's clear that Awad is having fun here—the proof is in the gore—and her delight is contagious . . . Wickedly sharp . . . A near-perfect realization of a singular vision." —Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW
"Outstanding . . . highly addictive, darkly comedic . . . Awad will have readers racing to find out how it all ends—and they won’t be disappointed once the story reaches its wild finale. This is an enchanting and stunningly bizarre novel." —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
"Sharp and utterly bonkers; think Heathers gone to grad school." —Booklist
"[A] dark story that defies categorization." —Library Journal
"The Secret History meets Jennifer’s Body. This brilliant, sharp, weird book skewers the heightened rhetoric of obsessive female friendship in a way I don't think I've ever seen before. I loved it and I couldn't put it down." —Kristen Roupenian, author of "Cat Person" and You Know You Want This
"Hilarious and subversive, magical and knife-sharp. This novel—a send-up of academia, an astute exploration of class in creative circles, and an ode to the uncanny power of art—confirms Mona Awad as one of our great chroniclers of what it means to be alive right now. Bunny is a stunner." —Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel
"It is not an exaggeration to say that I devoured Bunny—teeth, fur, claws and all. Mona Awad has written a truly delectable novel that is equal parts wit, fancy, and wickedness. Unafraid to challenge some sacrosanct notions about women artists, female friendship, and writing, her book is a compulsively readable testament to the sheer creative force of loneliness and longing." —Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, author of Miss Hempel Chronicles
"If you’ve ever entertained dark fantasies about what really goes on at an exclusive MFA program, Bunny will fulfill your wildest dreams . . . The novel twists from familiar campus realism to a dark fairytale, all the while traversing the emotional highs and lows of the writing process." —Electric Literature
"Mona Awad’s precision is only matched by her wit as she mounts one of the most pristine, delightful attacks on popular girls since Clueless. Bunny made me cackle and nod in terrified recognition. You will be glued to your cashmere blanket." —Lena Dunham, author of Not That Kind of Girl
13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A FAT GIRL (debut novel)
"“[An] insightful debut novel….Awad’s sensitive, unflinching depiction of [Lizzie’s struggle] is a valuable addition to the canon of American womanhood.” –Time Magazine
"A young woman navigates uneasy relationships with herself, her weight, and the world in Awad’s painfully raw—and bitingly funny—debut. Beautifully constructed; a devastating novel but also a deeply empathetic one...[READ MORE]" —STARRED, Kirkus Review
"Assured and terrific...[READ MORE]" —Publisher's Weekly
“Touching . . . Behind the title of Awad’s sharp first book, a unique novel in 13 vignettes, is brazen-voiced Lizzie, who longs for, tests, and prods the deep center of the cultural promise that thinness, no matter how one achieves it, is the prerequisite for happiness.” —Booklist
"Honest, searing, and necessary . . . [13 Ways] peels back the curtain on the struggles of entering womanhood—from body image, to relationships, to merely navigating the oh-so-cruel world. [READ MORE]" —Elle
“Mona Awad writes exactly what you’re thinking, and that’s one of the many reasons you’re going to love her debut. . . . [13 Ways] announces her as a writer with real insight not only to the mind, but also to the heart. [READ MORE]” —Bustle.com]
"Horrific and funny, bleak and uplifting . . . This buzzy debut novel . . . grapples with ideas of self-worth, friendship, sexuality, and the lengths we will go to find beauty in the mirror. [READ MORE]" —The Globe and Mail
“This book sparkles with wit and at the same time comes across as so transparent and genuine—Awad knows how to talk about the raw struggles of female friendships, sex, contact, humanness, and her voice is a wry celebration of all of this at once.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“Hilarious and cutting . . . Mona Awad has a gift for turning the everyday strange and luminous, for finding bright sparks of humor in the deepest dark. She is a strikingly original and strikingly talented new voice.” —Laura van den Berg, author of Find Me and The Isle of Youth
“It seems that Mona Awad can describe the imperfect nature of any love perfectly: whether it’s love between friends, between mother and daughter, husband and wife, woman and food. With sharp insight and sly humor, she makes you feel like you never understood the obsessive half-life of a food addict before. Not a word is wasted, and yet the book is bursting with richness and insight and observation. Each story works beautifully as a stand-alone piece and together they make a luminous whole, like a perfect string of pearls.” –Katherine Heiny, author of Single, Carefree, Mellow
“Remarkable . . . committed to the most honest and painful portrayal and comprehension of what it means to be human, with all its flaws and joys.” –Brian Evenson, author of Fugue State and Immobility