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mercedes 's review for:
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Warning for spoilers below.
I enjoyed this. I was invested. It was absolutely a page turner. But despite that, all in all I have more negative thoughts and feelings about it than I do positive ones. It's definitely a book that'll stay in my mind, and I may even reread it one day, but I don't think that this is a good book.
I'm very interested in old Hollywood and classic movies, so I was intrigued off the bat. And a lot of this did really interest me, the 80 or so pages just past the middle of the book were such a sweet spot of good chapters, but it lost me when it got to the 4-way marriage. I mean it was literally something out of an Avengers fan-fiction. My belief within a story can only go so far and that section in particular really took me out of the story.
As a bisexual woman I hated the way Evelyn's bisexuality was portrayed and it became a recurring annoyance. So much of Evelyn's thoughts are about how people see her sexuality, specifically Celia. Conveniently ignoring the fact she slept with two men while in a relationship with her, which she later claims isn't cheating because she didn't feel passionately towards the men and she did it for a valid cause (I disagree). I also just think it's kind of ridiculous to base a story in the 1960s and then repeatedly bring up that people don't understand bisexuality, especially when you then make the bisexual character a serial cheater. As if it's problematique for people 60 years ago to not be perfect when it comes to understanding sexuality, but it's totally fine to characterise your one (1) bi character this way. Also, the parts about civil rights vs lgbt rights were just so weird. "John was a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement, and I had been a very public supporter of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But this [Stonewall] was different. This was our people." Um... what?
The most glaring issue within this book is the characterisation (of which there is hardly any) and treatment of Monique. I saw the 'twist' coming a few chapters away and boy, is it disgusting! I was very uncomfortable by this point. Honestly, a big part of this book was just me and Lewis cringing at what the author believes to be an authentic portrayal of someone mixed. Almost, if not everything to do with her character is handled so poorly that I wonder if this book would've been better if it was solely the biography.
I enjoyed this. I was invested. It was absolutely a page turner. But despite that, all in all I have more negative thoughts and feelings about it than I do positive ones. It's definitely a book that'll stay in my mind, and I may even reread it one day, but I don't think that this is a good book.
I'm very interested in old Hollywood and classic movies, so I was intrigued off the bat. And a lot of this did really interest me, the 80 or so pages just past the middle of the book were such a sweet spot of good chapters, but it lost me when it got to the 4-way marriage. I mean it was literally something out of an Avengers fan-fiction. My belief within a story can only go so far and that section in particular really took me out of the story.
As a bisexual woman I hated the way Evelyn's bisexuality was portrayed and it became a recurring annoyance. So much of Evelyn's thoughts are about how people see her sexuality, specifically Celia. Conveniently ignoring the fact she slept with two men while in a relationship with her, which she later claims isn't cheating because she didn't feel passionately towards the men and she did it for a valid cause (I disagree). I also just think it's kind of ridiculous to base a story in the 1960s and then repeatedly bring up that people don't understand bisexuality, especially when you then make the bisexual character a serial cheater. As if it's problematique for people 60 years ago to not be perfect when it comes to understanding sexuality, but it's totally fine to characterise your one (1) bi character this way. Also, the parts about civil rights vs lgbt rights were just so weird. "John was a vocal supporter of the civil rights movement, and I had been a very public supporter of the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But this [Stonewall] was different. This was our people." Um... what?
The most glaring issue within this book is the characterisation (of which there is hardly any) and treatment of Monique. I saw the 'twist' coming a few chapters away and boy, is it disgusting! I was very uncomfortable by this point. Honestly, a big part of this book was just me and Lewis cringing at what the author believes to be an authentic portrayal of someone mixed. Almost, if not everything to do with her character is handled so poorly that I wonder if this book would've been better if it was solely the biography.