50 Books Challenge 2026 Part Six

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

Enjoyed this.

Monique is a 35 year old magazine writer, on the verge of divorce, when mega-film star Evelyn Hugo specifically requests her to write a piece about a charity dress auction. On arriving at EH's apartment, it turns out this was something of a ruse and EH actually wants Monique to write her biography, which the book largely does through following the timelines of EH's seven marriages, interspersed with chapters about Monique's life in the fortnight or so that the interviewing takes.

It was a pleasure to spend time with both Monique and Evelyn.

33) Hollowpox: The hunt for Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend. Third book in the Nevermoor series that I'm currently reading with my daughter. Morrigan starts her Wundersmith studies proper, but is cut short when a mysterious illness called the Hollowpox starts affecting Nevermoor's Wunimals (a marginalised group of sentient, talking animal-human hybrids). The Hollowpox strips infected Wunimals of their human characteristics, robbing them of their power of speech and turning them vicious. As those infected start to indiscriminately attack people, anti-Wunimal sentiment begins to grow, leading to clashes in the street and curfews and quarantines being put in place.

This book was noticeably darker than previous books in the series, and you can tell that the overall story arc is ramping up. I enjoyed Hollowpox slightly less as a result, because I missed the more humorous tone of the earlier books. However, I think it's important for adults to talk to children about how dehumanising language is sometimes used to stigmatized marginalised groups and justify poor treatment or aggression towards them, and this book would be an excellent starting point for that.

Looking forward to reading the next installment.

@RazorstormUnicorn The idea of this kind of travel is very confronting for me, and I can't decide if it's because times have changed or if it's a personality thing (I have a spreadsheet itinerary for even short trips and it brings me much joy!)

I am similar. I have spreadsheets and lists going back donkeys years to when we had small children. It's hard to remember how I planned travel in the 70s and 80s. Very outdated travel guides and maps certainly, but I remember just knocking on doors at B&Bs in Germany around 1980 and we always seemed to find nice places. The same can't be said for some absolute hovels I stayed in on Greek islands which were booked by looking at pictures in a brochure.

@RazorstormUnicorn I'm interested in your comment about travel planning. I went travelling in the early 00s without booking anything in advance, whereas now, like you, I have (and love!) a spreadsheet for all holidays. I guess the internet has made a massive difference to booking accommodation in advance, rather than just turning up and finding somewhere.

46 The Midnight Hour - Eve Chase We meet 30-something Maggie in present-day (2019) Paris, where she's a successful writer with a past she seems to be suppressing; that past comes out of the woodwork and we switch frequently between the present-day and 1998 Notting Hill where Maggie is 17, living with her recently widowed mum (a glamourous former model who is rediscovering her fashionable, famous life after years in the suburbs) and her adorable 6-year-old (adopted) brother. Then her mum doesn't come back after an evening out and everything changes...

I enjoyed the 90s setting and the story was quite good, though there were just a few too many secrets and lies, and the book ended up in a different place from where it seemed to be going for the first three quarters. The adorable little brother was even more adorable as a 6 foot 27-year-old - unconvincingly so frankly, but I didn't really care! There was a real sense of menace in places, which kept me reading late into the night, and also some lovely happy bits, especially the young love element. Not a bold but I do like Chase's books and will happily read more.

I can't remember the last time I read any non-fiction, I think it was james Blunt's autobiography. Someone recommended this to me and it was 99p on kindle.

How Not to be a Political Wife by Sarah Vine

I only came across Sarah Vine in the last couple of years as she appears on various political pundit slots. She’s a journalist who has worked for the Times and the Mail and is probably best known for her marriage to Michael Gove.
The book covers her unusual upbringing and toxic, alcoholic father and is emotionally quite raw and touching in parts. She left her home in Italy at 16 to go to school in England and never went back. She ended up in a social set in the 1990s with a group of Oxbridge grads (later known as The Notting Hill Set) who basically ended up running the country before falling out spectacularly. I hadn’t twigged before how closely connected and interwoven were those people - Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, David Cameron, Ed Vaizey, George Osborne and Dominic Cummings. They worked together and partied together, went on holidays together and were at each others weddings. There’s a memorable tale of when she went into labour, Gove was nowhere around and Ed Vaizey took her to hospital.
The chapters on the Brexit referendum and subsequent fallout are an eye opener. Cameron et al reverting to upper class type and looking down on Gove, and Sam Cameron with whom SV had been close friends for years turning viciously on Vine.
A microcosm of the divisions created throughout the country over Brexit.
It’s a fascinating story, well written and she comes across as engaging, vulnerable and self deprecating.

I never expected to enjoy a political memoire but I really did.

@carefullythere super reviews! I am trying to resist adding almost all of them to my gargantuan TBR!

The Story of a Heart is in Daily Deals today - will cause tears ❤️

Travels In A Thin Country by Sara Wheeler

Sara travelled to Chile in the early 1990s just a few years after Pinochet was overthrown and this means the memoir focuses heavily on the recent history. I found it hard to follow though, as the history of who was in charge is told as she visits certain sites which obviously were based on geography not date order.

Overall not quite my sort of travel memoir though it's hard to say why. I do like to know some background of the country visited, and she was quite funny and had plenty of anecdotes about people she met on the way so it should have been right up my street but I had to drag myself through it.

One thing that really stood out is how much travel has changed since the 1990s, she just turned up and sorted rooms as she went, no plans, and not much mention of safety. She doesn't mention money really, but often stays at very run down hotels, or camps in gardens or somehow finds accommodation so her budget was not open ended. The idea of this kind of travel is very confronting for me, and I can't decide if it's because times have changed or if it's a personality thing (I have a spreadsheet itinerary for even short trips and it brings me much joy!)

I also got halfway through the book before I realised I was going to the Argentina side of Patagonia not the Chile side. So it wasn't much use as research anyway. I did learn that Chile and Argentina don't like each other much and have disputed most boundaries and ownerships of islands at one point or other so that's probably useful.

I loved My Brilliant Friend, and enjoyed the rest of the Neopolitan Quartet. I do see why they might not be for everyone though, and I think they could definitely have done with tighter editing!

Latest reads below:
42 One of Us by Elizabeth Day Follow-up to The Party, which I read years ago but didn't remember very well. It just about works as a stand-alone novel. Classic satire centered on two friends from public school and Cambridge - one (Ben) incredibly privileged and the other (Martin) a social climber. They fell out at the end of The Party, but reenter each other's lives as Ben is running to be Prime Minister. It's told from various points of view and is alternately monstrous, funny and with flashes of gentle wisdom and redemption. Liked it a lot.
43 The Age of Diagnosis by Suzanne O’Sullivan Non-fiction discussion about when/if diagnosis is necessary/helpful etc. I came to this as I have both personal and (semi-)professional interest in neurodiversity, and the chapters on the exponential increase in diagnoses in that area were interesting and thought-provoking as I hoped, but I found the other chapters (e.g. about hereditary genetic testing for Huntingdon's, the genes that are markers for Alzheimer's) interesting too. Well-written and interesting.
44 Room on the Sea by Andre Aciman Slim novel about two people who meet and fall for each other while on jury service in New York. Dreamy and lyrical, and made me want to visit New York and Naples as soon as possible!
45 Private Lives by Emily Edwards Friendships and relationships are shattered in a small town community when the past of one of it's pillars catches up with him. This was a good holiday read - propulsive and with well drawn characters, though the premise was somewhat hard to believe.
46 Days of Light by Megan Hunter Set over five days of Ivy's life (with flashbacks/backstory), it follows her from life as a young adult until her death. Lovely, immersive writing, with some very well drawn characters (e.g. her mother), but it never quite made it off the 'just OK' list for me.
47 The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo Re-read as I found my (lost, lamented) copy of this at my parents' house on holiday. I'm counting it as I haven't read it for a few years and I enjoyed it so much. It's a sweeping family saga, following an affluent Chicago couple and their four daughters (at various stages of floundering young/mid-adulthood). The catalyst for the present-day story is the arrival in their lives of a child one of them had given up for adoption, but the back stories are all fleshed out too over the course of the book. I loved it - brilliant writing, great characters, funny, wise, unflinching. It was a bold for me when I first read it and will be again.
48 The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson Got this in my book subscription and didn't feel that enthusiastic about it but I was quickly drawn in. It's about the daughter of Windrush-generation parents growing up in 60s/70s Bradford. The narrative voice is just brilliant - writing through the eyes of a child is something very few people manage to do well and this is bang on. We follow Mercy and her siblings up until the age of 11. It's quite a harrowing story (all the more so as it's semi-autobiographical), but also very funny in places. I'd recommend it.

Almost at 50!!

And I loved the Neopolitan Quartet and inhaled the books but can see why others might not.

Oh, and on book clubs - i love the idea of them, but my problem is that every book club I have ever been to has fallen apart quickly due to lack of time/childcare/no-one reading the book. Endless rescheduling until the group just evaporates.

I'm moving to a new area this autumn and looked for a book club near my local area (for making friends too). I found one but their September read was going to be A Little Life. Ugh. I don't think I could suffer that for the sake of new potential pals.

39. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I'm kind of impressed that I finished it: took me 3 weeks of reading in between other books. I nearly DNF'd because Jane's childhood with the Reeds is so horrific, as are her early school years. And I'd forgotten how the novel drags on in places - her dialogue with St John is unnecessarily long and boring.
    A book about suffering the female condition and people being horrifically sadistic, all for a small glory. Glad I'm done as I won't ever re-read it

40. We Have Always Lived in a Castle by Shirley Jackson
    I got this book a while back and saved it for a flight as it's slim and relatively quick. 18-year old Merricat lives in an abandoned house with her uncle and sister who has been acquitted from mutdering the rest of their aristocratic family. They are secluded and hated by the rest of the village who taunt them. Merricat is precocious, defiant and highly unreliable narrator, displaying some autistic but also some personality disorder tendencies. It's a fantastic book, I think Jacksons best, with a lot of subtext and delicate detailing. A finely crafted, suspenseful read

Clear by Carys Davies

Much reviewed on here. Just after the Great Disruption of 1843 a Free Church of Scotland minister is sent to an isolated northern island to tell its sole inhabitant he has to leave so the land can be used for sheep. Loved this, although it was a bit close to home since an ancestor of mine was a factor in the north isles and responsible for the clearances.

I seem to have fallen off the thread. I thought I would have loads of reading time while away on holiday but it was much busier than I had envisaged. Lovely holiday but literally no reading!! Weird.
Awaiting a flurry of various visitors from later today until mid to late August so not sure will get much reading in any time soon. Can’t seem to settle to it.

I have just managed to catch up on the thread though, which is a book in itself!

@Welshwabbit - Loved your review of An Unnecessary Woman - added to my wish list.

@Bunnyofhope - I too really enjoyed The Island and even reread it after I visited Spinalonga 4 years ago. Then I followed up with the sequel, which was nowhere near as good to be honest.

@Iamnotaloggrip - I started Intermezzo but have put it to one side - certainly to be returned to at a later date - but I wasn’t immediately smitten with it.

On the subject of real people in books, I bought an autobiography that someone I used to know way back when has written and was quite frankly horrified to see how he has portrayed my very close friend :(

On the Hemingway chat - I’ve only read The old man and the sea which I quite liked - but admittedly it was a quick read!

Thanks to whoever recommended Ballard on Prime - DH (non-reader) and I are enjoying.

Also in current chat - I’m reading My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and really enjoying it!

31 - Thirst - John Robins
I imagine this was an important book for him to write and I hope it helped. I ‘enjoyed’ the beginning and very much appreciated the overall message but felt it was far too long and was tempted to skip sections towards the end. @DesdamonasHandkerchief - I agree that the butt hole surgery seemed highly irrelevant!!

Off to check the monthly kindle deals...

I HAD THIS AT MY BOOK CLUB EXCEPT IT WAS THE CHRISTMAS ONE

Steaming turd

My Book Club was good but I drifted away and they moved venues to somewhere I couldn’t get to

Don't let me put you all off Verity. I am also an Elena Ferrante hater and apparently those are quite popular.

The absolute worst book I have ever had to read for a book club was A Street Twat Cat Named Bob. That fucking cat.

@VikingNorthUtsire maybe everyone will hate it? That can be fun too. We had an enjoyable evening critiquing Fundamentally at ours 😀

I have enjoyed some of Hoover’s books but agree Verity is a steaming pile of dud.

Love the review 😂 If your fellow book-clubbers like the book, it sounds like they may not be your people…

Lol @VikingNorthUtsire I think you need a new book group.

I remember dd1 having a brief "co-ho" phase when she'd just started secondary and telling me a plot about someone who beat his wife, but it's ok as he had a really damaged childhood....I hopefully put her straight!

I think that was the one that Blake Lively made into a film.

@StitchesInTime That Mosse book was a DNF for me last year, for similar reasons though it was on audible and just did not work in that format sadly, I did think I might go back to it if I ever found eg a cheap charity shop copy that I could just dip in and out of. Like you I really wanted to like it!

@VikingNorthUtsire great review! There’s a woman on tik tok that does dramatic recaps/ reviews of Colleen Hoover books and they’re hilarious but have thoroughly cured me of ever wanting to read one.

LOL Verity was on my mental list because there’s a film coming out - NO MORE @VikingNorthUtsire

@VikingNorthUtsire lol. I don’t know how much value you’re getting from the book club but we certainly are

This is the only book group I can tolerate I can’t imagine having to read [insert name of book that you personally can’t stand] and talk about it <shudder>

That is a solid review, @VikingNorthUtsire and I applaud your willingness to suffer for your book group! 👏👏