THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO BY TAYLOR JENKINS REED

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I read this book recently for my book club discussion and had been taking my own time to review this because I wanted to process what I exactly felt about it. I was so skeptical about starting this book earlier because I did not want to get disappointed, considering the hype around it. This was my first book by TJR and I should say, irrespective of what I felt about the storyline, the writing was extremely impressive. I just did not want the book to end and it was more the writing that kept me hooked than the plot line.



THE PLOT: Monique grant is a journalist at Vivant. She is struggling with a broken marriage herself and wants to make her career take off. She finally gets an opportunity to interview one of the greatest Hollywood stars of all times, Evelyn Hugo. Little did she know that Evelyn doesn’t really want to give an interview to Vivant. But she only wants to tell her story to the world and particularly, only through Monique.

PROS: The writing is absolutely terrific and so absorbing.

The stories bridging Evelyn and Monique’s personal life were beautiful.

Has some strong female protagonists and a very relevant book based on LGBTQ.

Gives an elaborate insight into the sophisticated and also the ugly side of Hollywood cinema.

It gave me kind of ‘Once upon a time in Hollywood’ meets ‘Dirty picture’ scenario, both of which I loved.

I loved how the purpose of the book was never to clear her name. Instead it was for herself. She wanted to tell who she was, how much more she had in her life that was never seen by others, how she did things for herself and her loved ones unapologetically and also she wanted to get herself relieved of some guilt. I myself had love-hate feelings for Evelyn throughout the book which made love the book as a whole.


CONS: I couldn’t really get what genre this book belongs to, like is it biography or semi biography or fiction. That’s because I did some research on the actress based on whom allegedly this book was made. And I found that a lot of details were missing like some of her children were not even mentioned, her struggle with addiction and life through rehabilitation.


MY REVIEW: 4/5

#penbooksandscalpel

I am taking part in BlogChatter's TBRChallenge


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