I suppose I'll start with explaining that I do not hate the book, it just did not live to the expectations I had of it. After seeing it all over the social media and book shops, I thought it was one of those books i just absolutely had to read, however it seems like I could have survived without reading it.
I think I'm being a bit unfair, I didn't exactly know what the book was about and in my head thought it was in some way related to The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, while I also knew they weren't at all the same book, I placed them next to each other in my mind and compared them. It's two very different stories that can't at all be compared but I'll say I prefer miss Hardcastle over Miss Hugo.
I'll start by saying I very much enjoyed the diversity. Many ethnicities represented and the treatment of POC was an important part that was discussed in the book. I loved the diversity in sexualities, lots of different ones represented and all were represented both in a realistic harsh way but also filled with a lot of love.
The story was rather boring. The main character besides Evelyn Hugo, Monique Grant is a kind of boring person, you don't actually know much about her except that she's on the verge of a divorce and she's a journalist for some famous magazine. Her part in the book might as well not have existed and it could have simply been the diary of Evelyn Hugo, the connection made at the end between the characters felt like a quick way to wrap up their story and wasn't really something I cared for.
Many of the characters were abusive and cruel, yet were presenter through the whole book and some even loved and forgiven despite their abusiveness never really changing or ending, some scenes were difficult to read because of the fact that it would make no sense for those characters to be forgiven or remain in the plot yet they do, they exist through the whole story and it takes away so much from everyone other personality in the book. It's hard to explain without spoiling the plot.
Overall the book wasn't very entertaining, it wasn't a very good plot either. The only small details I liked where the ones mentioned above. There have been books that weren't my favourites yet were entertaining, unfortunately this was very much not one of them.
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