Review: Rouge

Rouge by Richard Kirshenbaum
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rouge is a deep dive into the beginnings of the modern beauty industry where two rivals go head to head to outdo each other, and to get beyond their humble starts. Constance is a Canadian who sees the world for the taking, though she has to often deal with her brother's secrets. Josephine is a Polish immigrant living in Australia, just waiting for her big break when it comes to selling her beauty creams. Throughout the decades they are both faced with successes, marriages, children and failures in all aspects, creating a strange bond, even within a deep professional rivalry.

This book is being compared to The Swans of Fifth Avenue, which I've read and don't think measures up to the same type of historical fiction. For one, this book tries to mask a real story under fictional characters. The Swans of Fifth Avenue used as many real-life figures as possible, making it more interesting and intriguing. This book didn't do the same for me. Instead of wanting to read more of this, I just wanted to find something to read that would tell me the real story of this rivalry instead.

*Book provided by NetGalley

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