Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

164 reviews

jeanettesreadingcorner's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

  • Evelyn Hugo’s life story is certainly entertaining and eventful. However, I don’t love it enough to keep my copy. I had high expectations because of how popular it is. I only started enjoying it towards end. 
  • I didn’t like Evelyn that much for most of the book. I don’t agree with how she treated Celia early on. I guess I don’t like how fake everybody is to each other but that’s Hollywood. I actually started to like Evelyn more after she retired from acting. When Evelyn started living as her true self. I enjoyed Celia St. James and Harry Cameron’s characters more. Evelyn, Celia, Harry, and John (and eventually Connor) being a family together was my favorite part of the book. 
  • I didn’t care about Monique Grant’s character at all throughout the book. The plot twist at the end was what made her interesting to me. I was mostly reading this to know who Evelyn Hugo is. 
  • The Old Hollywood glamour and timeline was fun and well-written. I especially loved the outfits and historical references. I also enjoyed seeing the actual media articles on Evelyn and getting to read about her in that perspective. 
  • The plot twist towards the end! I kind of suspected it or made guesses about it early on. I wasn’t exactly correct but I had an idea. 

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leonormsousa's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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emotional funny slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Read For:
Bi Icon
Sapphic
Actress MC
Old Hollywood Setting
Interview Style Storytelling

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I started reading this but this was not it but not in a bad way.  I’ve had this book for so long that I kind of went into this knowing nothing.  

I loved how this was told, the interview, and the old newspaper articles, it isn’t something I read often so it was kinda cool.  This book definitely has a charm to it, the world of old Hollywood and the dreams and damage it caused.  There were happy moments, a little spice, and some good old angst as well.

Evelyn was an icon and while she might not have been a good person she sure was captivating and the life of the party.  You either wanted to be her or be with her.  She kind of gave off Marilyn Monroe vibes.

The line at the end: 
“Doesn’t it bother you?  That your husbands have become such a headline story, so often mentioned, that they have nearly eclipsed your work and yourself?  That all anyone talks about when they talk about you are the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo?”

And her answer was quintessential Evelyn.

“No,” she told me.  “Because they are just husbands.  I am Evelyn Hugo.  And anyway, I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife.”
      - (Chapter 69, Page 385)

I waited the whole book to read that line alone and it was so worth it.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ (4.5/5)
Release Date: 13, June 2017
POV: First Person
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Rep:  Bisexual (MC), Lesbian (LI), Gay SCs, Latinx MC 

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sunflower7skull's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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jemmaisntcool's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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jessicadr's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is my first 5 star read of the year. The book moved very quickly from the beginning. Although there were a couple of times I tried to figure out while I was still reading, the twists at the end were so worth it. The feelings I have for this book are very controversial. This is definitely a book I’ll be thinking about for awhile.

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jjhina's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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darbylane's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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undecidedpersonality's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75


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buildingtaste's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Fair warning, I am going to over-luxuriate in being a hater, because I took this one personally.
I won't star rate it, because I didn't actually read the frame narrative chapters once I saw that they were going to be in first person present tense. Maybe that side of the story earns the unusually high ranking this has? 

Positives:
  • very quick read.
  • the section in Spain was lovely.
As for the rest...
Spoiler Read Evelyn Hugo, they said. It's about Hollywood and lesbians, you'll love it, they said. And... sure, it's ostensibly set in Hollywood, the characters are supposed to be actors in the tail end of the studio era into the new wave and new Hollywood period. But the author doesn't really seem to care about the setting much at all, except as a source of some emotional hurdles for the love story. If she had completely excised real history, relying on a sort of roman a clef version of renamed studios and figures, I could have rolled with it. But instead there were these rare nods to real figures and awards that sent me over-thinking. Evelyn compares herself to Celia and Ruby, but never thinks how her performance might stack up against Katharine Hepburn's turn as Jo March, or Garbo's as Anna Karenina. Her fictional film wins Best Picture in 1982, erasing Gandhi. The real history, where it comes in, is flippant rather than immersive. This Hollywood doesn't feel like it has a history, which is strange for a book that covers so much time, in a place that is so self-aggrandizing and nostalgic for itself. And the lesbians (ok, lesbian and bisexual woman, technically)... I had more time for. The rocky relationship with Celia came to a very poignant, bittersweet conclusion, and I loved their "marriage" in Spain before Celia's death. But the development before that was underwhelming, with their extremely short lead-up and the years they just spent avoiding each other. I wanted a lot more from all Evelyn's relationships than what I got. As it is, the book just seems like a series of quickly-sketched episodes, where despite her claims at being confessional, we get very little understanding of the central character.

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