The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Los siete maridos de Evelyn Hugo es un libro del que esperaba algo más, aunque no sé muy bien qué. Es una lectura amena, no me fue difícil entrar en la historia y enganchar capítulo tras capítulo para ver qué pasaba, pero me faltaba algo. Quizás era conectar más con lo que me contaba y con los personajes, lo que solo conseguí en momentos muy concretos de la historia. Puede que a mí en general me cueste empatizar con la gente rica (la mayoría de personajes lo son), pero el estilo además no ha ayudado en absoluto, la manera de contar las cosas lo volvía todo superficial: lo que sentían los personajes, cómo se relacionaban, la experiencia de tener una sexualidad no normativa o ser racializada… Quizás se trate de eso, de la superficialidad de Hollywood, del dinero y la fama, pero no me parece que fuese eso lo que la escritora quería contar ni lo que la mayoría de lectores se lleva.

Había oído hablar mucho y muy bien de esta novela, así que esperaba algo mejor. Es el típico problema de las altas expectativas a la hora de leer un libro. Me pregunto si lo hubiera disfrutado más si no hubiera esperado gran cosa de él, pero si no hubiese escuchado esas alabanzas probablemente ni hubiera sabido que existía y no hubiera habido lectura.

finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I will never be the same.
this fucking book just kept hurting everyday & amazing page turner. I'm sad I finished it bc I know there never will be another like it. it's sosososo good. one of the best reads of my life.
I don't like to read romance novels because I never relate to them, ever. but the way taylor jenkin reid created Evelyn & her undying love for Ceila made me cry & understand and relate to her.
she portrayed Evelyn's the bad, the good & the ugly sides perfectly.
also the perfect portation of found family & platonic love between Evelyn and Harry & his boyfriends??? Reid absolutely nailed it with them!
and the plot twist at the end?????? PERFFFFECT! I never screamed so loudly. the tension of that moment alone was so great.

as I said, one of the best books of all time.

This is a (kind of) good book but it's not great. There is no depth of character even though you are given Evelyn Hugo's whole life story within the pages. Evelyn was a cardboard cutout (and unlikable) and all you really know about her can be summed up in a few sentences. Just somewhat above ok-ish truthfully.

I liked the old Hollywood setting though. I liked the period of time it brought back to life-when America worshipped movie stars, bought magazines to catch up on the latest gossip, went to theaters to watch their favorite stars perform. It really was a big deal back in the 40s to about the mid 70s. Movie studios controlled the artists' lives back in the earlier days and would manipulate and curate the artists' persona, love life, artistic choices, fashion. Cover up messes and hide scandals, too. I grew up at the tail end of that era and can somewhat remember what it was like to go see a movie like The Way We Were with Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford. Or Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story. I recently watched Love Story again on tv after not even thinking about it for at least 45 years or so and thought "Oh, how hokey 'Love means never having to say you're sorry', yeah right, give me a break." And then crying at the melodramatic ending anyway, lol.

The great love affair of Evelyn with fellow actress Celia St. James was not belivable in the slightest and so bland and passionless and blah. And as the whole of the story pivots around that "great love" and it's not even interesting... it makes the rest of the story lackluster as well.

Easy enough reading if you want a sort of mindless book to read at the beach or beside the pool where you don't have to concentrate too hard to keep the plot straight but still be entertained enough until something better and more entertaining happens to pull your attention away. It'll be easy enough to pick up where you left off... blah blah blah Evelyn gets married AGAIN...

The reveal at the end was WEAK SAUCE and kind of ruined the book in my opinion. It was NOT needed.

I'm going to need a "Blame it on Litsy" shelf, aren't I? Because this is definitely a blame it on Litsy. It was a BOTM (another Blame it on Litsy!) choice, but I didn't pick it. But it seemed like everybody else had and were raving about it.

There's so much I want to say about this book but I will refrain because it's almost all spoilers. But I fell hard into this book -- way harder than I expected to -- and was ridiculously invested in Evelyn's life, and the lives of the secondary characters. I also was at the edge of my seat waiting for the why of Evelyn demanding Monique write her story. (It paid off like a gut punch. Oof.)

On the surface, it's a fictional Hollywood memoir. But past that, it's a deeply compelling story of identity and self, doing what one must to survive and protect loved ones, and finding your voice and passion. And so much more. I adored this book. It was so good!