By Taylor Jenkins Reid | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (7 out of 5 stars)
One word: B R I L L I A N T
This creation of Taylor Jenkins Reid was worth all the hype. I have given many books a five-star review before but this book is just too much and someway, and somehow, in the book, even if you are not a star as big as Evelyn Hugo, you can truly identify with her.
Evelyn Hugo, a Hollywood icon and an Academy Award winner, had it all good… and bad, of course. She did everything for fame, for money, for love, and for happiness, no matter what the consequences might be. She loved well, she loved deeply, but she wasn’t perfect. It was unconventional yet so raw, real, albeit difficult and complicated all at the same time. And yes, like she said:
You can be sorry about something and not regret it.
Just like Hugo, we live in a world where we want to be free and to be fair. But, sometimes, our lives aren’t cut out that way. There are times to be afraid and ace through it because just like her, we want to get out of our current and our past to get a hold of a better future.
So do yourself a favor and learn how to grab life by the balls, dear. Don’t be so tied up trying to do the right thing when the smart thing is so painfully clear.
Before I get to the middle of the book, I was sure to tell how the book flows and spoil it. However, it was so brilliant I couldn’t get my nerves and all my thoughts together except the pages I marked and sentences I highlighted that I can truly define myself with as well.
When you’re given an opportunity to change your life, be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. The world doesn’t give you things, you take things. If you learn one thing from me, it should probably be that.
She lived through fame, money, and even power. But at the end of the day, she only wants to be with her true love, with her family, with her best friend. Hugo proved to me, once again, that you can have all the money, fame, and power in the world that you think can make you happy when you don’t have it, but once you do, you’d know that all that matters are those three cannot buy, cannot measure, and cannot sustain.
The book teaches you all the lessons acquired the hard way. It was funny and heartbreaking and somehow sheds light on what you can comprehend now in this world. We can do everything for our ambition, sell ourselves even, but our core is the best identifier. No matter who we craft ourselves to be, there is no erasing our core and what we yearn best amongst the odds of our lives. It is within us we find what we truly seek.
Nobody deserves anything. It’s simply a matter of who’s willing to go and take it for themselves. No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.
Read this book. It is worth it. You’ll see that you cannot put it down either once you go along the way. And everything, everything will just blow out of proportion. Again, BRILLIANT.
Shainne Hostalero 