Noelle H.’s Reviews > The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo > Status Update

The writing is so poor that it takes away from good scenes. This author LOVES to abuse the “I did this. Then this. Then this” format, and it’s so frustrating. Why list every action individually instead of crafting a scene properly??? I think this author does decent in the dialogue category—though it can be inorganic—but her writing outside of that is awful. If only this book was written better…

I feel like this book rlly wants to be The Devil Wears Prada, but it’s scared to make a Miranda Priestley out of Evelyn. It’s almost like every time you want to hate her they throw in that she donated to charity or she was on the ‘right side of history’. I understand them wanting us to empathize with Ev, but she should’ve been worse. She should’ve been morally gray, not conditionally bad.

It’s often, with this book, that I’ll finish reading a sentence and think, “I could’ve written that scene so much better.” I’m no author, and all my writing credentials are from roleplays where I likely misrepresented the characters I played, but this book’s writing is poor. SO poor. And it’s a shame, because whenever I’d start to get invested—or even tear up—the writing would take me out of it.

The use of the d slur was quite excessive from an author that isn’t lesbian. I understand that there can be conditional passes for slurs being used in media, (depending on who you ask, which slurs, and how they’re used), but seeing as the author is bisexual, she could’ve easily just used the f slur to have the same effect. Idk I hate this book

Despite this book feeling like it’s 90% dialogue or inner dialogue, the verbal interactions between characters tend to feel so unnatural. Also, so often there is randomly something happening with no prior build up. Like, Max suddenly being close enough to whisper in Evelyn’s ear? No “he stalked closer as he spoke” or whatever, just straight to it. I hate this book.

Contrary to my previous scathing reviews, I do think this book had potential… if it was written by a different author. Nothing against Mrs. Reid, I just feel her writing style hasn’t given this story the level or taste this story could’ve been dealt

You can’t simply say, “the characters got drunk,” and then do nothing henceforth to prove that they are, in fact, drunk. Evelyn’s attitude and dialogue didn’t change at all, and she was supposedly ‘hammered’ with Rex. Also, ‘said’ is used entirely too much in this book. Not spamming ‘said’ is smth you learn in grade school English class, it’s so annoying.

This chapter was somewhat intriguing. I did get bored half way through the argument and up until the abortion. What I liked about this chapter—and this book—is how outspoken it is about feminism and queerness. It’s the reason I bought the book. But, aligning politics is not enough to save a book, and I fear this book is not staying on my shelf after I finish it, if my current opinion stays stagnant.

The perspective change in chapter 28 pissed me off. I understand what the author was going for with the step-by-step “you do __ and then you have to do __” in explaining how Evelyn convinced Mick to elope. However, I felt it went on for entirely too long, especially when it came to some parts that were specific to Evelyn. Like, no, I won’t be missing Celia or regretting fucking a guy cuz of my gf