The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Published by Simon and Schuster on June 13, 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Historical, Women
Pages: 400

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (4 out of 5)

I devoured The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Evelyn Hugo is a wonderfully complex character. She is driven, calculated, and stubborn. The story of her rise to fame was tough to put down. This is the perfect book to get you out of a reading slump. Unfortunately, my reading experience was diminished by too high of expectations (thanks a lot Bookstagram).

Evelyn Hugo is a major bombshell Hollywood actress from the 1950’s to 80’s. Off the screen Evelyn was frequently in the tabloids because of her tumultuous love life, which included a whopping seven marriages. In the present-day Evelyn selects a seemingly unknown journalist, Monique, to conduct her first interview in years. At their first meeting Monique is shocked when Evelyn tells her she doesn’t want her to write a magazine article, but instead wants to share her entire life story, to be written as a tell-all book. Monique cannot turn down this career-changing opportunity, but she also wonders why Evelyn selected her to write her biography. The novel then follows Evelyn’s retelling of her scandalous life including the story behind each of her seven marriages.

This is my favorite story that focuses on the price of fame. Evelyn’s story is so salacious and fun to read. Reid includes gossip articles interspersed between chapters of the book, which I thought was a nice touch. Comparing Evelyn’s true story with what was reported in gossip columns showed how she excelled at controlling her public image. She even hides her ethnicity to appeal to the mainstream. Evelyn is Cuban, but has herself remade in appearance, accent, and name to pass as white. Reid writes Evelyn as a morally ambiguous character. I respect her drive and determination to be a famous and successful movie star. But I am also frustrated by her repeatedly choosing to damage her relationships to further her career. She denies herself romantic relationships with people she loves in favor of toxic marriages that grow her stardom. I also enjoy how Monique is influenced by Evelyn’s story and changes over the course of the novel. Lastly, the story has LGBTQ representation, which I always appreciate.

Don’t be mistaken, this is a great book, but I question whether it deserves all the 5-star reviews on Goodreads.  It is impossible to avoid this book’s massive hype. So unfortunately, I was expecting a lot. Have high expectations ruined your reading experience? Some of the book’s twists were predictable. Also, the formula of telling the story of each of Evelyn’s marriage becomes a bit repetitive by the end. By the fourth marriage I was thinking: we get it; Evelyn marries to advance her career, not for love. And sometimes I was irked by Reid’s blatant teasing of the reader. Many chapters ended with lines like this: “I have no idea that in less than a week, Evelyn Hugo will finish her story, and I’ll find out what this has all been about, and I will hate her so much that I’ll be truly afraid I might kill her.” I admit these lines were effective because I kept reading, but they also felt like cheap tricks. My husband says that these lines read like a 11-year-old’s first attempt at creative writing(!)

Despite this book being overly hyped, it is worth the read. This is the perfect choice for a light read at the beach or while on vacation. Evelyn Hugo is certainly an unforgettable character.

The Troop

The Troop by Nick Cutter
Published by Simon and Schuster on August 16, 2016
Genres: Fiction, Horror, Thrillers
Pages: 384
five-stars

I really hope my review does this book justice, because The Troop by Nick Cutter is the best horror novel I’ve read this year, possibly ever! If your stomach is strong enough to handle the disgusting carnage contained in The Troop’spages, then this is a must-read.  Boy Scouts and body horror are near and dear to my heart. I immediately purchased a copy as soon as I heard this book combined both.  This was my first time reading a Nick Cutter book and I was impressed.  This book includes some of the foulest descriptions I’ve ever read (many made me audibly gasp) along with well written characters.

Five scouts, along with their scout master are camping on Falstaff Island, off the cost of Canada when a mysterious stranger arrives on a boat.  The stranger is emaciated and clearly sick. The scout master decides to provide medical care to the man and soon discovers that he is infected with a deadly and highly contagious parasite. The story becomes a fight for survival as the scouts try to escape the island.  Each of the five scouts represents a distinct archetype, such as the jock, the nerd, and the loner.  Cutter does an excellent job of developing the characters beyond their archetypes through flashbacks.  The scouts were all equally developed, which I appreciated. This way it was not obvious which boys would survive the longest.  Throughout the island narrative Cutter incorporates excerpts from different forms of media (newspaper articles, interviews, trial notes) that slowly reveal the origin of the parasitic monster. Nick Cutter has credited Stephen King’s Carrie for the inspiration of the media clippings between the chapters.

Without spoiling the best bits, here are a few stomach-turning quotes from the novel:

“Christ he was so hungry.  He’d eaten so much at that roadside diner that he’d ruptured his stomach lining—the contents of his guts right now were leaking through the split tissue, into the crevices of his organs”.

“The flesh over his skull had melted down his forehead.  The electricity had somehow loosened his skin without actually splitting it. Gravity had carried the melted skin downward:  it wadded up along the ridge of his brow like a crushed-velvet curtain, or the skin on top of unstirred gravy pushed to one side of the pot. His hair had come down with it. His hairline now began in the middle of his forehead”.

“…his gums had been eaten back from his teeth, and all but one—his left front incisor—had loosened and fallen from their gum beds; yet they remained connected by” his “braces, gray teeth linked like charms on a gruesome bracelet, clicking and clacking in the dark vault of his mouth, all hanging by that one tenacious tooth…which, as” he “watched, slid from” his “gums with a slick sucking sound, a bracelet of teeth bouncing over his lips, his chin, tumbling to the cellar steps”

If these repulsive excerpts are your jam I beg you to add this novel to your TBR immediately.  Essentially, this book is Lord of the Flies with a lot more violence.  I was left unsettled and jumpy, just like after I’ve viewed a great horror film.

Trigger Warnings:  Gnarly Graphic Violence, Animal Violence

five-stars

Billy Summers

Billy Summers by Stephen King
Published by Simon and Schuster on August 3, 2021
Genres: Action & Adventure, Crime, Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers
Pages: 528
three-stars

Only Stephen King can get me to read a novel about an Iraqi war veteran turned hitman on a quest for revenge. King’s latest release, Billy Summers, is a thriller without supernatural elements. Billy Summers’ only rule, as a hitman, is he only accepts targets that are “bad guys”. He hopes his latest high-paying assignment will be his last. Billy poses as a writer in an office building across from a courthouse, waiting for an opportunity to take out a murderer as he is escorted up the courthouse steps to stand trial. He uses the downtime waiting for the day of the assassination to write a memoir, ironically becoming the writer he is disguised as.

The first half of this book was excellent. I love when authors make their protagonists writers, it is one of my favorite literary tropes. Billy suspects the individuals managing the hit are spying on his laptop, so he purposely writes his memoir in a dumbed-down voice, to hide his intelligence. Convincingly writing in different versions of one character’s voice is impressive and displays why King is a master storyteller. There are many parallels between Billy Summers and King’s outstanding Misery. Both novels feature male protagonists writing stories that are featured within the novels. Additionally, both Billy and Paul Sheldon are isolated indoors for the majority of their stories. I suspect Billy’s periods of isolation were inspired by King quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic. King does drop in references to another work in the Stephen King Universe, fans of The Shining will be pleased.

About halfway through Billy Summers there is a major plot shift that drives the action for the remainder of the book. I found the plot in the second half to be less compelling and began looking forward to finishing the novel so I could move on to my next one, which is never a good sign. There is a horrendous instance of brown face in the book, that made me wince. Billy uses many disguises in the novel, one of them is a Mexican gardener (Billy is not Mexican) and involves layers of spray tan. After his first coat of tan Billy is described as “a white man with a desert tan”. After a second coat Billy is still not convinced and says: “This might have been a bad idea” (p. 395). Yes, Stephen King this was a horrible idea to include in the story. The disguise is wholly inappropriate! How did your editors approve this? Please do better! The frequent digs at Trump that I have come to appreciate in King’s latest works are present, but do not make up for this unnecessary, and highly problematic plot point.

I would only recommend this book to Constant Readers (King’s name for his die-hard fans). If you are a Stephen King completionist like myself, I’m sure you will be picking this up no matter what reviews say. For everyone else, there are plenty of better options in King’s massive bibliography to choose from.

Trigger Warnings: Rape, Pedophilia, War Violence

three-stars