The first thing I noticed about this novel was that there was so much more depth to it than I realised. I went into it thinking that I would only read a story about old glamourous Hollywood – and it became so much more quickly.
Themes:
– The exploration of different types of relationships – I loved that we saw friendships and relationships. And the complicated history of people having to hide their own sexual identity while they were in the spotlight.
–Bisexuality – I have never before read a book that has so perfectly summed up what being bisexual is like. The perfect description that showed how Evelyn struggled to find out what her identity is, and how when her girlfriend referred to her as “lesbian”, she felt as though a half of herself had been erased.
–Old Hollywood – It has always been an image of perfection and glamour, so it is great to find out the darker sides to it and how it wasn’t as perfect as it was made out to be.
–The Media – It essentially became the time when magazines stopped being interested in what companies tried to sell them, and instead started writing the gossip stories and finding scoops from “sources”.
In general I thought that the written narrative was really well executed, and the writing flowed nicely. The different types of chapters mixed the flow of the story up and added a really nice element to exploring the media theme.
The narrative was so picturesque to read. I could picture everything that was happening so vividly because of the attention to detail. Even the relationships that were explored had me reaching for the tissues and shipping madly one couple in particular.
Evelyn was a really hard character to love, but also wildly impossible to not like. She was written like a goddess until she was talking about herself – her confidence and desire is inspirational in describing a powerful woman ahead of her time. I would love to have that sort of drive and confidence in myself.
I could honestly write about this novel for ages, I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought the narrative was wildly enjoyable. It had everything a story needed – characterisation, unique stories, perfect descriptions, unexpected twists and much heavier detail than expected. I happily gave this 5 stars and want everyone to read it.
-Personally, Emma
