The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The book was gifted to me for Christmas. The life story of a Hollywood diva from the '50s and her seven husbands that spans all the way into the 2010s. I didn't expect much. I, not really a fan of romance novels or even interested in film icons and their lives, wasn't particularly inclined to read this book... until I did.

It didn't even take a full chapter before I couldn't put it down. Jenkins' writing style has something truly special that completely captivated me. So refreshing and the words were appropriately chosen.

I loved the structured writing, which makes the novel easy to read and follow.

Particularly close to the end when everything unfolds, you begin grasping the meaning, that there is more than just the seven marriages of Evelyn Hugo.

I didn't expect the end, though. Conclusive but it left me sad.

Obviously, there was / is a hype about this book and if so, it is totally worth it. It's an astonishing, touching and amazingly written historical fiction novel about unconditional love, passion power, guilt and loss, as well as the shocking and toxic reality behind fame and old Hollywood's glamour. I even might read it a second time to digest the bits and pieces of wisdom by Evelyn.

It's a fun, breezy read, even if it does bog down a tetch toward the end as it ties up some loose ends, but there's clearly a Blanchett ot a Streep or a Julianne Moore or someone who's gonna win an Oscar for playing the title role in the movie adaptation.

This is a (kind of) good book but it's not great. There is no depth of character even though you are given Evelyn Hugo's whole life story within the pages. Evelyn was a cardboard cutout (and unlikable) and all you really know about her can be summed up in a few sentences. Just somewhat above ok-ish truthfully.

I liked the old Hollywood setting though. I liked the period of time it brought back to life-when America worshipped movie stars, bought magazines to catch up on the latest gossip, went to theaters to watch their favorite stars perform. It really was a big deal back in the 40s to about the mid 70s. Movie studios controlled the artists' lives back in the earlier days and would manipulate and curate the artists' persona, love life, artistic choices, fashion. Cover up messes and hide scandals, too. I grew up at the tail end of that era and can somewhat remember what it was like to go see a movie like The Way We Were with Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford. Or Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal in Love Story. I recently watched Love Story again on tv after not even thinking about it for at least 45 years or so and thought "Oh, how hokey 'Love means never having to say you're sorry', yeah right, give me a break." And then crying at the melodramatic ending anyway, lol.

The great love affair of Evelyn with fellow actress Celia St. James was not belivable in the slightest and so bland and passionless and blah. And as the whole of the story pivots around that "great love" and it's not even interesting... it makes the rest of the story lackluster as well.

Easy enough reading if you want a sort of mindless book to read at the beach or beside the pool where you don't have to concentrate too hard to keep the plot straight but still be entertained enough until something better and more entertaining happens to pull your attention away. It'll be easy enough to pick up where you left off... blah blah blah Evelyn gets married AGAIN...

The reveal at the end was WEAK SAUCE and kind of ruined the book in my opinion. It was NOT needed.