Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

645 reviews

rinze's review against another edition

emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Originally reviewed on 21st January 2023.

When the question of "what's the book that you love the most? / What's the book you would 100% recommend?" pop up, I never had an answer. Not until I read this book.

I'm not so sure why I picked this book up, I knew this book was all hyped up from all over the internet, but the idea of reading the biggest movie star, talking about her life, never appealed to me. But I still tried a few chapters, and by the time I got the chapter POOR ERNIE DIAZ, I figure I'm hooked.
And I read about 30 chapter in one, single, day.

It's not what I thought it would be: A privileged human being, talking about her achievement and the movie industry drama, and some romantic plot in it. No, it wasn't that.

I love how Taylor Jenkins Reid portrayed the life story of Evelyn Hugo. Evelyn Hugo is really, really complex character. I wish that she was real.
I do not have the words to describe her as a character other than *she is really human. A raw human being.* A human being that instinctly cares about what they want the most, but she also have so much love to give to the love of her life.

She makes mistakes. That's how the character is so heartfelt, that's how we connect to the character. Evelyn Hugo made many mistakes, she isn't perfect, nor is she high up and foresees everything. She took many missteps, and had repeatedly broke her own & the love of her life's heart. It broke my heart to read through it too.
The book also portrayed how LGBTQ community is seen back in the centuries before now, it breaks me a little more to read each time I see how they had to hide. Showed how men dominates, and showed that no matter what your status, your fame, your power, it doesn't matter when you're under the abuse of a man. Abuse is abuse. Even if it's fiction, I resonates with it and felt for Evelyn Hugo deeply.

I don't think I can word how complex, addicting, beautiful this book is. If you're hesitating or debating if you should read this book, I would say, read it. Nothing to lose.

Content Warnings

kaylab_'s review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

giulianalb99's review against another edition

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challenging reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Este libro no fue para mi. Es entretenido pero sin más. Debido al bombazo que ha tenido y sigue teniendo me lo esperaba mejor pero alomejor es porque no me gusta leer romance🤷🏻‍♀️. De todas formas, para pasar el rato no está mal.

Content Warnings

mackenzieduric's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was the first book I read to get myself back into reading. I’d been meaning to read it for the longest time because of the hype all over the internet from lesbians who love it. It sat in my room collecting dust but once I decided I wanted to get back into reading, it was the first of my neglected books I picked up. And I finished it in 24 hours.

I loved it. I loved the way the book was formatted, jumping between Monique and Evelyn’s perspective. Going back and forth from Monique’s personal life to Evelyn and Monique speaking to just flashing back to the point in Evelyn’s life she was speaking about.

I also really enjoyed how the book was cut into parts by each of the seven husbands, each husband representing a particular phase in Evelyn’s life. All those phases being so different and each marriage being for such different reasons.

Every single character had purpose and none of the characters felt flat to me. Everyone had a reason for being. Each character is also very complex, all flawed in their own ways (some a lot more than others), which I appreciated.

Spoiler

I did not expect the reason why Evelyn had specifically chosen Monique to be the author of her biography and I was genuinely surprised by the reveal and valued the true and tragic connection between them.

Spoiler

I also adore the title being “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” when the main love story was Evelyn and Celia, the greatest love in Evelyn’s life was a woman. Her wife. I think this book is a beautiful historical fiction sapphic love story and I finally understand the hype around it.

Spoiler

“I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife.”

Content Warnings

particledamage's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.75

I feel like I am actively going insane.

Seeing good reviews for this books feels like I am on another planet.

This book is genuinely dreadful. It is both rushed and a slog. It is both biphobic and bisexual, racially inclusive and racist, about misogyny and sexist. It's preachy but only ever about like... basic decency things we all agree about. Finding out the author is straight and white clarified the book for me, truly felt like someone had just lovingly pried open my third eye so I could see the truth of the matter.

I honestly don't even think I can neatly summarize all of my complaints here. I sent myself emails with incoherent notes to myself about every new thing that set me off--her "soulmate" being emotionally abusive in patterns identically to her physically abusive spouse. The weird bullying about coming out as if was a CW show handling its first gay plotline and not about two grown women in the 50s and 60s. The weird contrived bit where whenever someone needed to get exposed for something, everyone would suddenly become letter-writers so that the letters could be found. The plot twist that was so insanely stupid I dropped the book.

The way that not only did the book pause to go on diatribes to know that terms like "whore" are bad but also spent an entire chapter knowing every single historical event that has happened, Evelyn was on the right side of it. She's complicated and obsessed with herself and money and glory but don't worry, she was right about Vietnam and treats her hired help well.

God, her character was repugnant but mostly in a dull way. Every character in this story was uninteresting, heinous, or both. Even Harry gets ruined in the end and he was the single enjoyable character the entire way through.

Just... what an awful experience. I'm speechless.

Read it just in a day though, so at least there's that.

Content Warnings