A review by bluenarcissus
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

challenging emotional reflective 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 loved this book. I finished it in under six hours. Evelyn Hugo frustrated me, worried me, surprised me, entranced me. Exactly as she would have wanted to do.

SpoilerI knew right away that this book would end with the star’s assisted suicide, and I want to emphasize that this is not a weakness or a flaw in this book.  Being able to guess the resolution to a mystery simply means that one has correctly picked up on the author’s cues, that we both played our parts. It felt earned, like every good ending. Especially since, like Monique,
I kept finding myself distracted by wondering what the next step in Evelyn’s story was.

In addition to its compelling heroines and excellent storytellIng, I’m rating this 5 stars because I so appreciated the complex representation of
Spoilerqueerness. Still women with a lot of privilege, mind, steeped in the self-centered glamour we might expect. But the abiding and contradictory love of two women and how they navigated it, and failed to… The wish and fear to give your all and show it to a world that might instantly reject you… I have felt that, in my own insignificant way. I have hidden from myself and the world be of the certainty I would be thrown away for who I am. It’s oddly impressive to feel so seen in a story so unlike my own.


This is a powerful, imperfect, complicated book. 
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