Having always been a fan of old Hollywood, I was very taken with this novel.

Reid’s writing is captivating and addictive, and she was really able to bring Evelyn Hugo to life.

While I generally dislike romance novels for their rushed chemistry and lack of character development, this was a romance done beautifully.

Evelyn and Celia are not perfect, they have real tangible issues, and I can sympathize with both, but being a person of colour as well, I was generally able to relate to Evelyn a bit more.

It often felt like Celia saw the world through rose-coloured glasses, mostly due to her sheltered upbringing as part of a rich, upperclass white family.

But Evelyn knew what struggle was, she knew what it meant to be poor and left with nothing, that love comes with a price, and sometimes that price can seem too high and others it can be inconsequential.

But people are flawed, and so are these characters and that’s what makes them human, it’s realistic, but heartbreaking all the same.

No one in this book is perfect, and that’s the ticket. There is struggle, there is heartache and there is love, and that’s just life isn’t it?