Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

63 reviews

buildingtaste's review against another edition

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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jamieruwen's review

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.5

It took me a while to get into this - not something I'd usually pick up I guess. I have to say Monique irritated the shit out of me and the way her existence is just used as a frame narrative for the real story felt... old fashioned at best and useless at worst. That being said - Evelyn's story got really fun once you realise how much she loves Celia and what she is willing to do to climb the ladder. She's cruel, stupid rich, cold, and still the book managed to make feel sympathetic towards her - she's a survivor of domestic abuse, she's a famous woman in the 50s-80s, she has a strong sense of self and what she wants and does whatever it takes for the people she loves.
All in all this doesn't really provide the complexity and/or poetics I'm usually interested in when reading but it was a pretty lighthearted break from my previous read with was an absolute avalanche of pain (Nightcrawling - 4.5 stars). Some of the topics in this - domestic abuse, being lgbt in the 50s-80s, womanhood as an actress in the studio system - are really heavy, but they don't really get treated with the careful approach you might expect.

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idontread's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective 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? It's complicated

4.25

to anyone who saw me crying alone in the airport lounge while reading this no u didn’t

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anneschreurs's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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? No

5.0

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tinysierra's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

“People think intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me” - that’s intimacy.”

Evelyn Hugo’s story was compelling and it’s easy to see that she is a very flawed and complex person.

I can see why so many people were enthralled by this book. I love the newspaper articles sprinkled into the story, as well as some of Monique’s story being interwoven into the narrative so that it wasn’t so heavily focused on Evelyn.

I loved the sapphic moments between Celia and Evelyn. I loved the family that they built with Celia, Harry, John, Conner and Evelyn. I loved the emphasis on platonic bonds and partnerships.

“Please never forget that the sun rises and sets with your smile. At least to me it does. You are the only thing on this planet worth worshipping.”

The way race is talked about is kind of odd…

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madzie's review against another edition

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Reid concocts a spell-binding tale about fictional celebrity Evelyn Hugo’s life dealing with fame, media, femininity, and sexuality. Through the use of soapy drama, you can’t help but read through this legend’s life in just the same way media often sells us the life of celebrities. Characters demonstrate an important theme of how complicated humans and human relationships are. However, unlike what a biography of a real celebrity may feel like, Reid never seems to cement her main character in the reality of humanity, leaving it hard for me to really feel, see, and connect with Evelyn throughout the story.

Further, although the main themes are highly important topics that are likely to make any novel worth a read, Reid’s chunky and heavy-handed writing and unnecessary plot points make it feel like Reid bit off a little bit more than she could chew. Some of her themes, such as her exploration of fame and womanhood, are spot on and make me wish she had focused more on a few themes rather than stretched out and only briefly mentioned them all. At various points throughout the novel, ideas feel shoehorned into the story without real exploration, as if Reid did not fully consider the implications of what she was saying and including. For example, she jumps from conflicting ideas about sexuality and sexual orientation, denying the overall understanding of the queer experience, and, despite the main character being bisexual, tells a queer story from a very allonormative and heteronormative position, which feels very strange.

Important plot points or history seem mentioned in passing, but not important, and whole characters and Evelyn’s relationship with them are passed over without any type of feeling created for or around them, leaving a rather hollow ring to it as if it was just moments to get through. I enjoy that Reid attempted to tackle poignant ideas in her novel, but I wish she had changed aspects of how she approached some topics so she could create a fully-immersive story that really considered big ideas about who is erased from society, what humans do with the desires they have, and relationships humans have to each other.
Despite this, Reid's bold writing is commendable. In the end, Reid experiments with writing, themes, and characters in reflective and admirable ways, and despite aiming so hard for the bullseye, she never hits it dead-on in truly groundbreaking or reflective ways.

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kappafrog's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious sad 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

3.75

I zoomed through this book. I was really compelled to find out all its secrets. But now that I'm done, I'm not sure how o feel about it. The ending should have had more to it after a major revelation late in the book. The handling of race was clumsy. But I loved the fictionalization of a situation many in Hollywood found themselves in.

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