This was definitely a page turner - I did not want to put it down. I wanted to know how she ended up with seven husbands! I ended just as entranced with Evelyn Hugo as her fans were. I wish I could track down the movies and articles written about her. I don't know if I like her as a person or not, but I find her fascinating. I wouldn't make many of the same choices as she did, but after hearing her tell her story, I understand her at least.

I connected a little less with Monique and her side of things - I didn't get why we had this framing device at all - but near it end, it all clicked into place. I ended up loving that part of the story as well.

The book was also just a great love story, and a great story of friendship. Her whole found family was amazing and lovely. And as a bisexual woman of color, Evelyn Hugo is an icon. It was so great to see a character actually use the word (several times!) and live her life as a bisexual person - we almost never get that nuanced representation. I found myself so sad for her that she had to hide so much of herself - her heritage, her family, her true feelings. But she also chose that life! What an interesting character. If I had known what it was about, I would have picked it. up sooner!

This novel feels like several stories stitched together without enough thread.

The strongest section is the first: a vivid, detailed account of Evelyn’s rise as a Hollywood starlet, told moment by moment with real dramatic power. But the book then shifts into a different mode, tracing her queer relationships in broad strokes, often through dialogue punctuated by abrupt time jumps (“and then six years passed.”). Major stretches of life are reduced to a few lines, leaving the later narrative feeling thin compared to the richness of the beginning.

Additional subplots add to the sense of imbalance. Evelyn’s struggles as a mother and the family’s sudden move to Spain receive comparatively little attention, despite the potential for depth. The framing narrator’s father is revealed late in the book to have been queer as well, but this revelation lands awkwardly, with zero groundwork and little payoff. These side stories sit alongside the main plot rather than reinforcing it, making the novel feel more scattered than layered.

The result is a book that starts with striking detail and intensity but loses focus as it widens its scope. Still, the brilliance of the Hollywood sections carries enough weight to make me want to give it four stars. A longer version of this book - something that truly tried to inhabit and explain Evelyn's post-starlet life, instead of boiling it into a Forest Gump collection of moments, might have been five stars.