The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Taylor Jenkins Reid 

My View: Maybe it was all the hype that really psyched me about this book and then I was disappointed.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo starts off with a bang and appears to be a page turner, keeping me up till the wee hours of the morning.

However, the novelty of the plot soon wears off as the book seems quite repetitive in some of its circumstances.

I read another of Reid’s earlier this month Carrie Soto Is Back and I know she does a stellar job with strong female characters and I love that about her. Perhaps which is why I was expecting more from this one. But maybe the mistake I made was comparing her latest release to something she wrote 6 years back. Of course, she’s gotten better at writing since then.

It was a good read nevertheless and a page-turner for the first half. The second seemed a bit dragging. Of course, the ending was stellar. But I think editing could have been better and that would have taken care of the drabby bit in the second half.

I love the LGBT parts and I could identify and empathize with the struggles of being out. Loved the chemistry between the girls, I was pining and rooting for them. It was frustrating to see them mess up over trivial stuff. But that’s how you know the book is good, when you get invested in the characters and their behaviors, Ugh. 

Reid surely knows how to etch her characters and the plot was nice and novel as well. You can definitely pick this up for some drama and a quick read.

Have you read the book? What did you think of it?

3/5 stars – I liked it.

Buy it here – Amazon India | Amazon US | The Book Depository | Add on Goodreads | Flipkart | Audible

Genre: Fiction

Date Published: June 13, 2017

Synopsis:

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 near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

About the Author

Taylor Jenkins Reid is the New York Times bestselling author of Carrie Soto Is Back, Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones & The Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, as well as four other novels. She lives in Los Angeles. You can follow her on Instagram @tjenkinsreid. 

Caste: The Lies That Divide Us

by Isabel Wilkerson

My View: Caste is one of the most amazing books I have read in a long while now and I do read a lot (atleast a book a week if not more). I started sharing quotes from this book early on in my reading on my social media pages. It is everything I think, and try to tell people but littered with real-life examples and good writing. It was all I needed.

Caste is not just a book. It’s a reality of people all around the world; from the castes in India, to Nazism in Germany, to Casteism in America. It’s the same thing, over and over again, people and places might differ. It’s the innate need to find oneself superior to another, to have someone beneath us to feel better about it all.

It’s a topic I struggle with on a day to day basis, whether it is being discriminated against in another countries for having “brown” skin, or trying to get my country’s citizens to move beyond last names and castes. It’s not easy, most of the time people don’t get it. Every time someone asks me my last name, I resist. Why do you want to know, I ask? Even as a young teen, I knew I wanted to just sign my first name and never my second. I did not want what I was born into, to define me. I did not want my last name to put me above others. I do not want a special treatment. I want to be known as who I am, for what I do, and not what I was born into, that I had no control over. Like each and every one of us on this planet, we can’t choose the color of our skin, what family and caste we are born into. Why then do we choose to discriminate and wage wars based on these baseless things?

Caste is a book that talks about history, and present, and the future. If you have been thinking about caste (like me), you would find a warm hug between its pages because here is someone who not only feels the same but also went ahead and researched and talked to people and wrote a well-researched thought-provoking book about it. Of course, there’s also this constant frustration as I read because I really wanted to find a way out of this rigmarole. But I realized the only way out is in. Unless everyone feels this way, we cannot move on or put this in the past. I feel alienated from my country when we wage wars in the name of religion and caste and what not. I wonder when will we move on?

If you have not thought about caste, you probably fit into the category of ‘dominating caste’ who has not had a reason to think about it because you are not discriminated against and it doesn’t bother you. In which case, this book is even more for you. To help you see what goes on in the world, to make yourself aware and to rise up to call out and take action against this senseless arbitrary activity that tends to continue in varied societies around the world.

While I was reading this book, I felt strongly that it should be a part of student curriculum all around the world. As the last unit narrates how Germany has not just wrapped up with the Nazism but made sure to remember what happened so that it would not repeat again. While we in US and India, continue to discriminate, ignoring what the so-called ‘subordinate’ castes have been put through and continue to be put through. Unless we rise up and shift things, we will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

What an absolutely brilliant book, Isabel! Great on facts, engaging, and riveting writing, this would be on my to-gift-to-everyone list for a long time to come.

Have you read the book? What did you think of it?

Buy it here – Amazon India | Amazon US | The Book Depository | Add on Goodreads | Flipkart | Audible

5/5 stars – I loved it.

Genre: Non-Fiction

Date Published: August 4, 2020

Synopsis:

In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people–including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others–she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

About the Author

Isabel Wilkerson is an American journalist and the author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. She is the first woman of African-American heritage to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

Best Books I’ve Read in 2014

This week long event is hosted by Two Chicks on Books, Rachel from Fiktshun, Mindy from Magical Urban Fantasy Reads, Rachel from Reading YA Rocks and Nancy fromTales of a Ravenous Reader!

Today’s topic is: Best Books I’ve Read in 2014 

 

I had never heard of this book when I picked it up at my local library. It looked interesting and so I did. What a wonderful book it was. The writing is so close to the culture and so inertly beautiful that I wanted to read it over and over again. The content is powerful and painful at the same time, it makes you think.

This book was so unpredictable and powerful. I loved the plot and the writing was beautiful as well. It was a page-turner and very different from what I have ever read.

Leo Tolstoy. Need I say more? Such a punch packed in this little essay. A must-read for everyone. Read my full review here.

I put this book down twice after having read the first few pages because I just couldn’t get into it. Third time I not only read past it but finished it way quicker than I should a 500-pager. Loved the story, the characters. It keeps the mystery intact and is very unpredictable.

This book was on a whole new dimension. The plot was very innovative, the story completely threw me off. I felt for the characters. It made for an interesting read.

I heard this one and it hooked me from the very first chapter and didn’t let go! The characters were to-die for. I laughed so much. This book was a riot. Loved, loved, loved the plot.

>Another audio. The location, the narration, the way the characters retraces her past – it was very exciting. Read my full review here.

After being disappointed by Hopeless, Colleen Hoover had me by this one. It makes for a very different read. Although, I’m really not into Colleen’s insta-love style, this book had so much more going for it that I had to decide to ignore it and move on.

Such a charismatic, slow-read this one. Once in a while, I love to savor these and let the taste roll around in my mouth.

This one’s again very different from what I have read. I love when stories take their time unraveling, keeping you waiting by the tenterhooks for that one moment. And sometimes that moment passes you by and you never know what did it. I love those, do you? Read my review here.

What are your favorite books of 2014? Let me know by commenting below or leave a link so I can check yours.