This book was another one in my the weird space of a TBR and oral recommendations. And as of this posting, the author is in talks to bring this book to screen, and I am excited! Here is why.

I am a fan of classic Hollywood, and if you are, you will love this book! Taylor Jenkins Reid takes us through the studio system, domestic violence, fierce competition dressed in great shoes from wardrobe! I love this book! I LOVED THIS BOOK!

Evelyn Hugo born Evelyn Herrera is our protagonist, and she will be the one that you will love. That you will hate. That you will want to fight! Jenkins-Reid pulls no punches with this character! None! And I loved her it! Evelyn Hugo is ambitious, self-determined, and…unrepentant!

Yet, she is a survivor Intimate Partner Violence. Evelyn had an alcoholic father and a dead mother. She used her body to get to California, where she married her first husband–and divorced him, and got into film. I could not help that by reading this book to think of Elizabeth Taylor.

Oh yes, oh yes!

What is so good, so intoxicating about this story is just how, and why she married…and she never really found love. Until she met her wife. Yes, wife! WHEW! And one of the most audacious things Evelyn Hugo did? She married a low class man in order to throw the WORLD off her trail with the love of her life–her wife–Cecilia St. James. And the fight before?! Oh my!

In this story, we Evelyn use her body to succeed, her fame and money to disguise, hide and sex to disguise how lonely she was. When she reached out the magazine Vivant for an unknown reporter, Monique Grant, for an exclusive on her life story, on for her to find out just how entwined she was within Evelyn’s story!

This book is a window into the life of famous women come and gone in the studio system I had only read about! Yet, the most powerful thing is just how relentless and honest Evelyn was through the eye of Monique–which is the power of story and story-telling. And the ending of the book? The FOR REAL ending?! You will not see coming–be prepared to read to the end, curse, and throw the book.

Take a deep breath. Read. You’re welcome!