Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

20 reviews

katiem716's review

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Suicide, and Murder

bookdragonenby's review

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative sad medium-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

4.25

This book can be a lot of drama, the heartbreak is constant. I feel for Evelyn and this is a wonderful tale of love and loss. It opened my eyes to how quickly life can go speed past us. Inspiring and instilling a priority of loved ones that I greatly needed. The story is well written with rounded characters and a thorough telling of Evelyn's life. Overall I enjoyed reading this story and seeing how different the world was and still is about the others of our world.

Spoiler

I hated how Harry died, wishing for him to live happily after John died. Evelyn was wrong on so many levels for how she handled Harry's accident, I sympathize with her predicament losing a soul mate is never easy. The raw look at assault and abuse that takes place in the book was eye opening for me at how normalized it was for people at the time to hide the abuse and assault that they were faced with. Evelyn selling herself over the years to become what she wanted, to leave her sad life behind. Is bravery and using the resources given to you wisely.

She was flawed, selfish, and stubborn through out all her years. But she knew that and used that to her advantage like any man would and did. Like 'Goddamn' Don Adler did his entire existence.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Biphobia, and Suicide

Minor: Sexual assault, Abortion, Addiction, Rape, Sexism, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Drug use, and Murder

mooninthebooks's review against another edition

emotional 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Murder, Child death, and Death

diddydumplins's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

where do I start? The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo had both hands clasped around my neck, forcing me into the depths.  I hung on each and every written word, felt each emotions Evelyn felt and cried when she did.   No words can begin to illustrate the wonders of this book. I wholeheartedly recommend every bookworm to give this a chance. Wow.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Physical abuse, Blood, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Cancer, Chronic illness, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Car accident, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Death, Death of parent, Eating disorder, and Murder

Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, and Abortion

minsreadingnook's review

emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

3.9*
Thoughts:
The more I thought about the story as a whole, the more my rating dropped lol but If you would’ve asked me while I was reading the story, I would’ve given it a 5*. I feel like the ending was somehow… lackluster. I don’t know why to be honest, probably because I was just not ever invested in Monique as a character. Or maybe I just expected so much.

Connor’s name just reminds me of Connor Murphy but I love the way motherhood was portrayed.
Evelyn was such an interesting character to read. I devoured this book because of her.
I don’t like Celia that much but the nice parts of their relationship was pretty cute. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Infidelity, Injury/injury detail, Misogyny, Outing, Toxic friendship, Death, Grief, Sexism, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Suicide, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Murder, Self harm, Adult/minor relationship, Racism, Abandonment, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Cancer, Car accident, Cursing, Drug use, Pregnancy, Rape, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Abortion

inthemoonforcheese's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful sad fast-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Homophobia, Injury/injury detail, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Outing, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Abortion, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Cancer, Car accident, Child death, Chronic illness, Classism, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Incest, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, and Violence

sisaacs's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Murder and Terminal illness

_callmealex_'s review

emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Car accident and Murder

Minor: Homophobia

missy20's review

challenging emotional lighthearted reflective sad 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

I’m honestly amazed by how much i liked this book, i went into it knowing how highly it had been rated on ‘booktok’ and ‘bookstagram’ and other social media platforms so i went into it hopeful but aware of how hyped things get on those platforms for no particular reason (*cough*cough* spanish love deception*cough*cough) and after reading the first 100-150 pages my worst suspicions were being confirmed and this book was so close to becoming a DNF, i only really liked the present day setting and was completely disinterested in Evelyn’s retellings. But after giving it a week and coming back to it, i managed to get further into the book and was quickly enraptured by it.

Evelyn herself is not a nice person, and this becomes evident over the course of the book and her telling her story (kinda SPOILER: i believe she even admits to monique at some point that she is well aware she’s a shitty person) but despite her almost ‘holier than thou’ attitude there is definitely a certain charm that makes the reader empathise and understand why she has done all the she has done and also understand how she made all her seven husbands fall in love with her(or some form of love/adoration). She is clearly the villain of the narrative(though i would argue that this is a story with no real villains/multiple villains.. if that makes any sense) but despite this the reader still finds themselves captivated by her story and her life and almost rooting for her.

I honestly think Monique was the biggest letdown of this book.. she had such potential to be a really fleshed out character yet i just don’t think there was enough time spent on her and her motivations for writing the book.. yes it does tell you why she’s doing it/ what she’s doing it for, I just personally didn’t think ‘fame and gain’ would’ve been a good enough reason for Monique to accept and offer with so much uncertainty behind it(i mean she could’ve had to wait 15+ years before she was able to publish it.

Spoiler

she didn’t know Evelyn was planning to off herself once she’d told her story

The change in monique also felt far too abrupt, at the start the book kinda tells you ‘oh she’s can’t stand up for herself’ but it’s never really seen or fleshed out and then BAM all of a sudden she’s assertive and everything because she’d been speaking to Evelyn for 5mins or something.

Spoiler

Quite frankly to me, Harry being a part of her dads death really felt forced and shoved in there to add something else to the book, the book mentions the name James Grant once prior to Evelyn being like ‘oh hey my baby daddy killed your father and we covered it up.. oopsy-daisy.’ this whole thing felt so forced and i understand that it completely drove the plot but i feel like Taylor Jenkins-Reid could’ve either done it better/ found a better reason for Evelyn to want to meet monique.. but to
TJR’s credit it was certainly an unexpected twist that caught me off guard.. but that’s just me and i know that’s an unpopular opinion.

The way the men were written in this book were so well done, they were all just a little bit gross(Harry excluded) but the book did really well to not completely villainise the men, but instead show their faults as well as Evelyn’s and almost compare and be like hey he did bad things.. but she’s a shitty person and balance the situation out(also don excluded cos he is just an ass)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo does such a superb job of bringing to light issues that most other books tend to steer clear from. The book also brought to light such a big range of issues like divorce, death/loss, domestic violence, homophobia, The AIDS crisis and president Reagan doing nothing for it, cancer, the failings of politicians in power to acknowledge LGBTQ+ community as people deserving of rights and freedoms like everyone else, racism, the stonewall riots and the hardships of being in the spotlight/being a celebrity.. and it managed to touch on all this issues whilst still being captivating and not making these issues feel shoved down your throat.

Honestly i’m so happy i powered on and finished the book it was so, so, so worth it. it was the perfect mix of happy and lighthearted and also somber and sad(i can’t remember the last time a book made me cry, if ever.. but Seven Husbands did a damn good job of nearly making me cry and i needed to take a few minutes to recompose my brain near the end) it was beautiful but also tragic and i really really recommend this book to anyone and everyone it deserves all the hype it has gotten and is easily the best book i have read so far this year!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Suicide, Cancer, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Car accident, Death, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia

Moderate: Misogyny, Car accident, Murder, Sexual content, and Miscarriage

Minor: Lesbophobia, Biphobia, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

emmanuellagladman's review

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

so good like no words just go buy it 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Racism, Pregnancy, Addiction, Lesbophobia, Outing, Misogyny, and Injury/injury detail

Minor: Suicide, Abortion, and Murder