And I didn’t say I was confessing any sins. To say that what I have to tell is a sin is misleading and hurtful. I don’t feel regret for the things I’ve done – at least, not the things you might expect – despite how hard they may have been or how repugnant they may seem in the cold light of day.” Being bisexual didn’t make me disloyal,” Evelyn says. “One has nothing to do with the other. Nor did it mean that Celia could only fulfil half my needs.” I really loved how Evelyn's sexuality was portrayed in this book. I liked watching her grow as a person - from a teenager using sex to get herself out of a hellhole to falling in love and finding it something to be cherished. PennyDriverKLM says: All hail Evelyn Hugo for making blond hair and dark eyebrows THE LOOK. Evelyn, I salute you. And perhaps my favorite part was the messaging around the importance of actual love in relationships, rather than just a willingness to try.

there is a plot twist that occurs that the end of the book that i really did not appreciate. the twist itself was not bad but given the main character's identity in relation to a deceased person's identity i was honestly appalled. you would think a POC understands POC struggles and wouldn't frame a fellow POC but what do i know. Still, after I read the ending my mind was reeling and my feelings were so mixed that I had a tough time coming to terms with everything that was revealed. There were so many things I felt conflicted about and even now, after more than a week has passed, I still didn’t manage to sort out my feelings and I still don’t know what to do with them. Maybe I’ll have to get used to the idea that to think about Evelyn Hugo and her seven husbands will always make me feel conflicted and that there’s no such thing as making peace with an ending like that. People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is 'you're safe with me'- that's intimacy.”This book includes three ( three!) interracial relationships. Actually, it’s more like ten if you count the fact that our protagonist is Latina. Yes! This may be the bare minimum, but I’m so used to YA wherein one pale as snow teen romances a - gasp - pale as paper teen! Diversity in young adult books = one character is of Western European descent and the other Eastern European. Talk about a vanilla romance. (Buh dum ch.) and this issue was particularly egregious to me because yes sure the time period was hostile to F/F relationships. but when you have a veritable shit load of money you can cover things up. that wasn't the issue. these two were just too pigheaded to make things work. so. so. irritating. The epic adventures Evelyn creates over the course of a lifetime will leave every reader mesmerized. This wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet and her tumultuous Tinseltown journey comes with unexpected twists and the most satisfying of drama.”— PopSugar There were a tremendous amounts of very quotable quotes, and this was one of those rare books that you hope never has to end. We didn’t only get the interviews with Monique but also were able to read news articles about her life and this made everything so much more intriguing. I mean “Hollywood Digest”, “Sub Rosa” or the “New York Tribune”, they all wrote about Evelyn’s life and those articles give an authenticity that makes this book feel real. It could have happened, Evelyn could have been a real Hollywood Star and people could have been as fascinated by her as by Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich.

Riveting, heart-wrenching, and full of Old Hollywood glamour, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one of the most captivating reads of 2017." -- BuzzFeed The pacing was amazing. It grab you from the beginning and lemme tell you tHAT THIS WAS ADDICTIVE. I wanted to know more and more, until I got to the end, until there was nothing but my broken heart and my tears falling on my shirt.You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until somewhat stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.” Evelyn Hugo a. k. a. Evelyn Elena Herrera is one of the most portrayed characters, a daughter of Cuban immigrants, raised in poverty. She’s not only beautiful, alluring but there’s something different about her: her energy is vivid, radiating. She knows what she wants for her life and she’s competitive and determined enough how she may get it by leaving her life in Hell’s Kitchen and moving to Los Angeles to become one of the movie stars, dying her hair, exposing her slender body, looking directly at the camera with her almond shaped eyes under her long lashes till the director tells her “cut”.

So I told myself that the spark between Celia and me was just a quirk we had. Which was convincing as long as it remained quirky. Her love for Celia throughout the years truly made this wildly unbelievable story cinch for me. Honestly, her relationship with Celia Now she’s 79, married SEVEN TIMES, a Hollywood legend, ready to share her life story and scandalous secret she kept for years. She befriends 35 years old Monique Grant, an unknown reporter works for “Vivant” in Los Angeles. Even the boss of Monique has no clue why this Hollywood legend demanded to work with her: she could choose someone more experienced, popular, known in the industry. I regret every second I didn’t spend with her. I regret every stupid thing I did that caused her an ounce of pain. I should have chased her down the street the day she left me. I should have begged her to stay. I should have apologized and sent roses and stood on top of the Hollywood sign and shouted, ‘I’m in love with Celia St. James!’ and let them crucify me for it.” Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.All the feelings in this book are deep and explores the sexuality and feelings of a woman who didn't know she could feel more for someone else than a man. And I'm glad that she and Celia got married at the end. :') all i’ve ever wanted was for you to be truly mine. but you’ve never been mine. not really. i’ve always had to settle for one piece of you. but i can’t do it. i can’t do it, evelyn.” At the age of 79, Hugo has long been an icon of glamour and elegance. She is known for a personal style both sensual and restrained, and many of Hugo's most famous looks are considered touchstones of the fashion and Hollywood archives. A lot is revealed over the course of the book, and the best part is just being surprised at each twist and turn, so I don’t want to go to specifics even a little. I’m just going to cut off this review here before I risk, like, accidentally mentioning that Evelyn Hugo’s third husband turned her into a vampire and she was a vampire the whole time and she turns Monique at the end of the book.* Monique would be a fool - an absolute fool - to pass this up. But the thought, the 'it's too good to be true' sort of thought, continues to replay in her mind. Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it. Overall, this one was good but I was never wowed.

Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways. first, i knew going into this that TJR's writing does not work for me. it's not hard to digest which is nice. but the writing is so clear and no frills that it's odd when we get these little nuggets of prescriptive morality. she doesn't want the reader to form their own opinions, she's rather just hold your hand to the "point." which happens in almost all of her books. makes for a super quotable book, but for me it felt forced at times.Monique Grant impresses both her boss and Evelyn with her article on the right-to-die movement. For an in-depth look at this controversial topic, consider reading Wild and Precious Life by Deborah Ziegler with your book club. This memoir chronicles a mother’s last year with her child, Brittany Maynard, who captured national attention with her vlog about deciding to end her life after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Ppppppppppps reply to Hihello565: Yeah, OK. Something tells me if the most well-respected, sophisticated magazine in the country offered you a job, you’d take it. I repeatedly winced and rolled my eyes at soppy, silly prose, such as the implausible: “I loved you so much, that I thought you were the meaning of my life... I thought that people were put on Earth to find other people, and I was put on Earth to find you. To find you, and touch your skin, and smell your breath, and hear all your thoughts....” You didn't come here and tell me how much you miss me. Or how hard it has been to live without me. You said you didn't want to give up. And I don't want to give up, either. I don't want to fail at this. But that's not actually a great reason to stay together. We should have reasons why we don't want to give. It shouldn't just be that we don't want to give up. And I don't... have any.