Taylor Jenkins Reid

Das Buch spielt am 27.08.1983 in Malibu. Nina Riva, ein bekanntes Surf-Modell, gibt eine Party in ihrem Haus. Die erste Hälfte schildert , wie sich die vier Riva-Geschwister vorbereiten. Obwohl ihr Vater ein berühmter Sänger ist, sind die vier in bitterer Armut aufgewachsen, immer unterstützt von ihrer ältesten Schwester Nina. Nicht zuletzt dank deren Modell-Karriere haben sie es nun „geschafft“ und sind im jungen Erwachsenenalter relativ stabil. In der zweiten Hälfte geht es um die Party, die komplett aus dem Ruder läuft.
Ich mochte das Buch, wenn ich es auch nicht so brillant fand wie andere der Autorin. Die Riva-Geschwister sind tolle Charaktere. Man folgt ihnen gern, daher fand ich den Rest (die Party) eigentlich unnötig (und auch unglaubwürdig, denn dass ein so introvertierter Typ wie Nina jährlich so eine Party schmeißt, ist kaum zu glauben).… (mais)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has a really good idea behind the story. Following Monique, a local writer for a magazine company, the book details the life of Evelyn Hugo, a major Hollywood actress from the latter half of the 1900's. The spill-all style writing makes it an easily readable novel simply because of the appeal of gossip surrounding the lives of celebrities. Throughout the book, however, I was left disappointed in the way Taylor Jenkins Reid, a straight White woman, decided to portray her queer characters and characters of color.

I will start with the queer representation. Everything about her queer characters felt heavily stereotyped, to the point that they almost didn't feel human. Every relationship these characters (Evelyn, Celia, Harry, John, and James) were in was made as straight-appearing as she could have possibly made them. The nuances of how they felt coming to realize they were queer or on the pressure they felt to hide that part of their identities was never fully fleshed out, and it led to me feeling as if this part of their identities was an afterthought. As a queer person myself, my queerness impacts everything about how I live my life; yet, the only reason I even knew these characters were queer was because it kept being explicitly stated, instead of being integrated into who they were as people within this book.

I also took issue with how the people of color were portrayed as characters throughout the book. This aspect of their identities felt like even more of an afterthought than their queerness, and felt specifically used for the shocking plot twist at the end. The Latine characters fell into heavy stereotypes. Evelyn's mother was implied to be a prostitute, Evelyn's father was abusive and a raging alcoholic (on tequila?? One of Cuba's bigger exports is Rum; it wouldn't have been tequila he had a problem with and even a quick internet search could have fixed this), Evelyn herself was the sexy woman with a big chest who only had an identity through her husbands, and Luisa was Evelyn's maid. This is virtually all we know about them being people of color, and it would have been nice to see their personalities actually fleshed out.

The Black characters are depicted in just as problematic ways. The only Black characters we see throughout the book are James, a Black gay man who gets killed before you even learn he was Black or gay, and Monique, a biracial Black woman who virtually never brings up her race except to compare her experiences with race to Evelyn's experiences as a bisexual woman (who also happens to be James' daughter). I quite literally forgot that Monique, the main character, was even supposed to be a biracial Black woman until it was brought up, which is again, something that should have been incorporated into her character more thoroughly.

While I am glad that a book with main characters who were people of color and queer has become so popular and widely liked, there are so many authors of color, queer authors, and queer authors of color who should be and deserve to be allowed the space in publishing that Reid has taken for herself. It is not Reid's place to tell the stories of queer people or people of color. The issue for me is not that she included those characters in her book; but it is that she was trying to tell their stories and how she tried to be an authority on how queer people and people of color's stories should be told (in her eyes).… (mais)

Initial reaction: whaaaaat

I didn't cry in the parts that I thought I would, but I cried.

Good, good book.




Now on a serious note:
So what this book is about is love and all the different kinds of love. Platonic love, romantic love, sexual love, abusive love (if you can call it that), motherly and fatherly love. Also it is about all kinds of relationships that are not related to love, but to respect or transactional relationships or relationships between boss and employee and how much power either can have over the other. So much good stuff in this book. So many themes. And that's not even the whole plot of the book. But for this reason alone, I really like it.

You, yeah you, should totally read it. But no pressure.… (mais)