"Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?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.Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the '80s, and of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways."
I went back and forth and back and forth about my ratings for this book for so long, and I'm still not entirely sure how I should rate it, so I'm just going to stick with what I've got and dive in to the why, starting, of course, with the initial draw. I debated whether I should include this or not, since I went into this not having really read a synopsis or anything, so from an "oh, I'm dying to get into this story" perspective there wasn't any draw because I didn't know anything about it. But I put it on my Read Harder list and I thought the cover was striking, so it was something that I did want to read on some level, so ultimately it stayed. What's strange to me, now that I have read the synopsis, is that I honestly don't know if knowing what the book was about would have made me want to read it more or less. Is that weird? Anyway, whatever, I gave it an average rating. I don't know.
On to character development, another toughie because here's the thing. Evelyn Hugo? I was dying to know more. The way that she was written to be so complicated and in some ways so dark but also still someone I felt like I just had to root for was masterful. I also loved Harry, who seemed like a complete fucking sweetheart, through and through. There were even some minor characters, like Frankie, who I found very intriguing and wanted more of. The downfall? Every time the story shifted back to Monique, I found myself disappointed because the present-day storyline was so one-dimensional next to Evelyn's. I guess it's hard to stack up against a decades-long tale of Hollywood stardom, intrigue, scheming, love found and lost, etc, but...why tell the story this way, then?
The transitions back to the present were an anchor dragging the rest of the story down, particularly because neither Monique nor her storyline were really developed. Even her divorce, which is painted in the synopsis as a Big Deal, was very meh. The character development in the flashbacks? Five stars. Present day? Two stars. It kind of reminds me of when competitors on cooking shows decide to prepare two dishes when they're only asked for one and the judges are like "hrmmm ok, but just know this means we'll be forced to judge you on the worse of the two dishes..." No disrespect to Monique, I wanted her to get more development and have a better story, but her parts of the story were the worse of the two dishes.
And finally, plot and writing style. Heavy sigh. This could have been five stars, y'all. It should have been. Bisexual representation, biracial representation, the inclusion of an abortion that is pretty much a non plot point, it's literally like one line...there were so many things included in this book that I loved. And the main character being a woman who, beginning in the 1950s and continuing through her whole life, knew what she wanted from her life and did what it took to get it, regardless of how anyone else reacted or what people thought of her? Hello, I'm in love. Unfortunately, there was one huge thing I hated about this book, and that was the fatphobia. I mean, this was in my early notes, and it did not improve from there:
It was just...SO excessive. Monique is getting divorced, but at least her face is thinner, thank god! This group of men is so unattractive, very rotund. Ugh, I hate my mom's nickname for me, it's a reference to how I was SOOOO FAT as a child. Like. We get it, Taylor Jenkins Reid, you hate fat people. Please find more creative ways to describe people in your writing, because if the only way you can think of to paint a character as unattractive is by deciding they're fat, you lack imagination and also are just generally being shitty. It was grating enough that if the rest of the story hadn't pulled me in so thoroughly I would have DNF'ed in the first few chapters, which is incredibly disappointing from an otherwise pretty socially aware and engaging book.
Anyway, should you read this book? I don't know. If someone asked me for recommendations and this fit the bill, I'm not sure if I would put it on my list or not...but I do know that if I did it would have an asterisk. So do with that what you will.
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