Crystal Aura Gaze

Warning: this review contains some spoilers! I am not going to give away the ending but there may be a few spoilers that come up if you plan on reading this and want to be surprised.

I heard about this popular novel for a few years now and decided to give it a shot. It’s a little bit lengthy, but I found myself devouring it in just a few days. I listened to the audiobook version. This made it convenient to get through while cleaning around the home, driving, etc.

Monique has been assigned the task of doing a piece on Evelyn Hugo, but when she meets her, Evelyn reveals that she wants her to write her life story and publish as a book. It’s not clear until the end why Evelyn has specifically chosen this woman out of all people, and that’s one spoiler that I won’t give away.

Most of the book follows Evelyn retelling her life story, but we also get some pieces of Monique and her personal life. Monique is a biracial woman who lost her father in an accident at a young age and is currently going through a divorce. She’s a writer but her work is still relatively unknown.

Evelyn, in her late seventies, takes us on a journey of fame through the 1950s and 60s, with that old Hollywood glamour and plenty of scandals and secrets. Monique questions, for a woman who’s been married seven times, who was the true love of her life? It’s revealed a bit later, yet still towards the beginning of the book, that her true love was a woman named Celia. The biggest secret of all that she’s kept is that she is bisexual.

Evelyn truly loved a couple of her husbands, although most of her marriages were shams from the start. She entered a couple of them as career moves or ways to keep her bisexuality a secret. But Evelyn only loved one woman: Celia. She fell for many men, but never another woman.

I’d say that her second marriage was the worst, in which she was beaten and cheated on repeatedly. Her best marriage was with Harry, her gay best friend who was also closeted. And her best “unofficial” marriage was with Celia, in which they had to go to great extent to hide their romance from the public. In her final marriage, Celia proposes that she marries her younger brother as the best way of keeping them legally bound.

Evelyn is not only hiding her bisexuality, but also her Hispanic identity. By dying her hair blonde and changing her last name to Hugo, she blends in as a white woman to fit in with prejudice standards of Old Hollywood. And she uses her body and her beauty to get ahead and make the right connections.

It’s tragic to follow a woman living her life so inauthentically. But this so accurately reflects the dirty price of fame and fortune. She certainly learns the lesson of what it means to be truly happy as your authentic self, but this is a lesson she learns far too late in life.

And despite her inauthenticity, I found myself empathizing with her. In so many ways, she was a victim of her environment. She was strategic and manipulative, but she was clever enough to understand that if people were going to use her, she might as well use them back and benefit from it.

This book made me think about the culture of fame and stardom. There is a part of us that is deeply attracted to scandal and gossip. We all want to know what’s going on behind closed doors — especially from a beautiful woman who seems so perfect.

I wouldn’t call this book a light beach read, but it’s also not so heavy that it weighs you down. There’s plenty of plot twists to keep you invested. I can see why this book is so popular. I’d highly recommend it, but I also say, don’t read a book just because it’s popular. Some people may not like it if that’s not what they’re into.

Stars: 5/5