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A review by pierrereads
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5.0
All I could say is... Wow.
I started reading Evelyn Hugo at 23:30 the day before yesterday,only to finish it at 2:30 am last night, literally in tears (which does not happen to me that often whilst reading)
I am a huge sucker for Old Hollywood horror stories and drama, Feud: Bette & Joan being one of my favorite shows ever, I also am very fond of Hollywood on Netflix, so this one was obviously going to be one of my fav reads this year.
I had expected to be at least a bit disappointed, because whenever a book with this much raving and admiration surrounding it,you fear that it would not be as good as people say it is.
Yet this book delivered.
Evelyn Herrera/Hugo is an incredibly interesting character,quite complex,very in sync with her body which she used to manipulate everything and everyone around her to get what she wanted, and she is very unapologetic about it which makes me like her even more.
I had not expected ,not at All, that this book would be a queer read, it was very surprising to me in the best way possible,because queer representation matters especially in books.
Evelyn and Celia's relationship was a beautiful, yet quite troubled thing and I cannot decide on how I feel about their relationship.
Evelyn is quite selfish, and self-obsessed BUT she has the right to be since she literally came from nothing. I still am not sure whether she fought so fiercely to hide her gay relationship with Celia because she loved her and did not want her to suffer,or because she did not want to lose everything she fought so hard to get, maybe a combination of both. Their last days together at the end of the book were absolutely beautiful and made me sob.
As for the titular Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, my obvious favorite is Harry Cameron and their respective gay relationships and make-shift family were very heartwarming and beautiful.
I really loved the storyline with Max, him being in love with the Image of Evelyn Hugo, not Evelyn herself, it was very smart and well-written.
I did have a couple issues with this book though:
. Monique Grant was just destroyed by the huge presence of Evelyn Hugo, she just did not convince me as a lead character,but more of a side character in this book.
. The twist at the end with Monique was quite underwhelming to me, her father being the person Harry fell in love with ,revealing he was gay after all, and that was her connection with Evelyn. It just did not feel as good as I had expected the plot twist to be.
. I just wish there were more real Old Hollywood elements to this book, we got really few ones (including the great Rock Hudson) and I would have loved to see a couple more ,AKA I wish there had been a Joan Crawford or a Bette Davis cameo.
I started reading Evelyn Hugo at 23:30 the day before yesterday,only to finish it at 2:30 am last night, literally in tears (which does not happen to me that often whilst reading)
I am a huge sucker for Old Hollywood horror stories and drama, Feud: Bette & Joan being one of my favorite shows ever, I also am very fond of Hollywood on Netflix, so this one was obviously going to be one of my fav reads this year.
I had expected to be at least a bit disappointed, because whenever a book with this much raving and admiration surrounding it,you fear that it would not be as good as people say it is.
Yet this book delivered.
Evelyn Herrera/Hugo is an incredibly interesting character,quite complex,very in sync with her body which she used to manipulate everything and everyone around her to get what she wanted, and she is very unapologetic about it which makes me like her even more.
I had not expected ,not at All, that this book would be a queer read, it was very surprising to me in the best way possible,because queer representation matters especially in books.
Evelyn and Celia's relationship was a beautiful, yet quite troubled thing and I cannot decide on how I feel about their relationship.
Evelyn is quite selfish, and self-obsessed BUT she has the right to be since she literally came from nothing. I still am not sure whether she fought so fiercely to hide her gay relationship with Celia because she loved her and did not want her to suffer,or because she did not want to lose everything she fought so hard to get, maybe a combination of both. Their last days together at the end of the book were absolutely beautiful and made me sob.
As for the titular Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, my obvious favorite is Harry Cameron and their respective gay relationships and make-shift family were very heartwarming and beautiful.
I really loved the storyline with Max, him being in love with the Image of Evelyn Hugo, not Evelyn herself, it was very smart and well-written.
I did have a couple issues with this book though:
. Monique Grant was just destroyed by the huge presence of Evelyn Hugo, she just did not convince me as a lead character,but more of a side character in this book.
. The twist at the end with Monique was quite underwhelming to me, her father being the person Harry fell in love with ,revealing he was gay after all, and that was her connection with Evelyn. It just did not feel as good as I had expected the plot twist to be.
. I just wish there were more real Old Hollywood elements to this book, we got really few ones (including the great Rock Hudson) and I would have loved to see a couple more ,AKA I wish there had been a Joan Crawford or a Bette Davis cameo.