The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Notes on this book:

This was a quick read but...pretty disappointing, especially considering how many rave reviews I've seen. I just didn't find the writing and characters convincing at all. The writing felt awkward, and the dialogue felt like a children's book a lot of the time, for example exchanges like this extremely mild ending to a supposedly heated discussion:

“OK,” Celia said. “If you're sure that's the way we can do the most good”
“It is,” Harry said. “I'm sure of it.”

Major problems and issues were often solved by half page conversations. I felt like I was supposed to be invested in the narrator/journalist's life but her characterization was so minimal. Also none of the news stories throughout, including the narrator's article at the end, were written at all like real news stories (in terms of tone and writing style).

There is also a lot of “telling” rather than “showing,” like referring to “the past few years I'd watched Harry lose friend after friend, former lovers, to AIDS” when the “past few years” were...part of the plot. Why wasn't that mentioned then? Like why not include that while we are in those years rather than add it as an afterthought (this happened with a few different things).

- I could be wrong but don't know how often people in real life say stuff like “and also, we are gay” to each each other when talking to their lover in private. Just a lot of really awkward writing.

- Kept using the word “bedded” to mean slept with (“he must have bedded a number of women” “he liked to bed every woman he met” type of thing) which I guess was supposed to make Evelyn Hugo sound old/old fashioned but since it was one of the only notably “old fashioned” phrases and used so many times it was really awkward.

Spoilers:
The plot is reasonably entertaining and well structured with no major plot-holes, so I guess as a plot-driven book it works somewhat. The twist was built up WAY too much for how underwhelming it was, and I also saw it coming as soon as the car crash scene happened.