Aging (79) and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life.
When she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Golly, everybody just loved this book. Except me. It is about the golden age of Hollywood, when homosexuality was definitely a no no, and the aging star’s biggie secret is that she was in love with a woman for all those years and husbands, but the two of them seemed stuck in their adolescence and couldn’t grow enough to make it work in spite of their fame and money. Maybe because of the fame and money, which neither were ready to give up in order to have the relationship. Well, you have to name your priorities, and this relationship apparently wasn’t Numero Uno.
A wicked, contrived twist at the end didn’t help this story of basically every Hollywood Big Name that ever was. So for me, meh.
What Has Been Read Cannot Be Unread 