Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

204 reviews

chronicacademia's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Because I picked this book unaware, and I worry others might too, I think it’s so important to put this out into the world: this book grossly glorifies suicide.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Ableism, Car accident, Death, Child death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Mental illness, Blood, Cancer, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Suicide

Moderate: Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Racism, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Abortion, Drug abuse, Pregnancy, Drug use, Homophobia, Misogyny, and Sexism

lucyatoz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid is a novel that is a retrospective of the life and loves of an aging Hollywood icon who is telling her story to a young and unknown magazine reporter Monique. 

I enjoyed this book with its flowing written style, sections relating to each of her seven spouses and their stories and interspersed with magazine clippings that moved the narrative along. You could read between the lines and see many symmetries to many stars through the decades such as Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and Natalie Wood to name but a few in this tale of ruthless ambition, treasured friendships, complicated families, the cost of fame and ultimately being true to yourself and those you love and love you just as much.   

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Terminal illness, Car accident, Death, Domestic abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

andreapepsii's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I binged this book. I loved it. It was easy to read, yet so complex in character development that left you reflecting about each choice and each character. I am a bit unsure whether the narrator back and forth approach was good at the beginning but it payed off well enough in the end. Highly recommend this book if you’re in the mood for some historical fiction with an extraordinary MC

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Domestic abuse, Sexism, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Homophobia, Terminal illness, Child abuse, Suicide, and Infidelity

Minor: Cancer, Abandonment, Abortion, Car accident, Colonisation, Drug abuse, and Death of parent

crimelessvictim's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Car accident, Chronic illness, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Death, Physical abuse, Sexism, Domestic abuse, and Infidelity

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Cursing, Abortion, Death, and Child death

glammster's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Grief, Alcoholism, Car accident, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Infidelity

Moderate: Sexism, Homophobia, Sexual harassment, and Suicide

mahra's review against another edition

dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Evelyn Hugo, you will always be famous. ✨

I devoured this book. I listened to the audiobook on Audible, and I think it’s the way to go.

The author is really good at writing characters who feel incredibly real, and will stay with you. Evelyn Hugo is a very complex and fascinating woman. The way the author describes and portrays the relationships is absolutely stellar.

It is not a five star for me because of a few issues I had with the prose that took me out of the story. Also, Monique (I actually forgot her name) is the one character who was not interesting (and she’s a very important one). Plus, some of the author’s choices made me cringe a bit, unfortunately... I felt like the issues with Evelyn’s Cuban background and her relationship with her culture could have been handled better. I also think that Monique’s biracial identity and struggles with it, were just mentioned and never really lead to anything. I see the attempts, but I don’t think it was done well.

It was still a very pleasant read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Violence, Physical abuse, Sexism, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Minor: Sexual content

kananineko's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Homophobia, Biphobia, Domestic abuse, Death, Car accident, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Suicide, Terminal illness, Cancer, Lesbophobia, Sexual content, Misogyny, Cursing, Blood, Racism, Xenophobia, Sexism, Medical content, and Infidelity

Minor: Infertility, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Abortion, Drug abuse, and Drug use

emmaloho's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Medical content, Infidelity, Death of parent, and Car accident

Minor: Lesbophobia, Drug abuse, Biphobia, Terminal illness, Suicide, Abortion, Racism, Pregnancy, Outing, Fatphobia, Drug use, Cancer, Eating disorder, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Death

picastoste's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.5

My main problem with this book is that it is not entertaining, and its writing is mostly bland.

For how much this book is hyped about being good representation for LGBT people and a good LGBT story, I found it extremely out of touch with how LGBT people talk and view the world. The conversations, discussions and conflicts around it are not only unrealistic - they don't make any sense. 

The best conflict in the book for me was actually the part that was interesting and with the best writing in the whole story, actually engaging and presenting depth to the main character, but it gets resolved in like one chapter and then almost never brought up again, even though the story did allow for it to bleed into the rest of the book. 

I do think the spousal abuse and violence was depicted fairly realistically, and it was engaging to see how Evelyn reacted to this and dealt with it, and the resolution was not completely satisfactory but that is actually good writing there, because it is supposed to be unfair. But then she only ever speaks of him in the past and not once in her relationship with Celia does this traumatising lived experience come up... only weird biphobia.

 

And the ending seemed extremely rushed and not that well thought out for any of the parties involved.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Sexual assault, and Domestic abuse

loup's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Sexual content, Grief, Child death, Death, Violence, Cancer, Domestic abuse, Car accident, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Blood, Vomit, Physical abuse, Lesbophobia, Suicide, Homophobia, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, and Self harm

Minor: Chronic illness, Drug abuse, and Drug use