Book Review: The 7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Sapiens, Le Cycle Des Dieux & plus ?
Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well!
Welcome to this new video which will be a little different to what I usually film.
Just before starting, I don’t know if you saw on my Instagram, I took a little break of 3 1/2 weeks and
here on Youtube as well. I was in a motorcycle accident and my left side of the body
my arm, leg and face, got the biggest hits. I got 4 stitches above my lip.
If you see a darker area right here, it is my scar. I am doing well now, I am back!
I just wanted to explain why I had to take a little break.
As you will see, I decided to do a new series. With the last 3 weeks, I really had more time
as I was not filming or editing anything. I got back to reading and I read quite a lot.
This is why I wanted to do a new series. I will share with you recently read book reviews,
I will be sharing books I absolutely love, books I liked and books I didn’t like quite that much.
I really want to review every book I will be reading from now on. If you have a Goodreads
I will link mine down below. I use more their star rating system, I do not write any review.
If you are interested in seeing my account, I will add it in the info bar.
I will be reviewing 5 books in each review and here are my 5 books.
I have here more than 5 books just because the last 3 are a trilogy.
There will be a mix of French and English books as I read in both languages.
I hope this series will please you and I will get started before everything falls!
The first book I have is The 7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
This is a book we see everywhere, that I have seen on Booktube and on Instagram so many times in 2020
and you will understand why. This book is about the meeting of a Hollywood Star, Evelyn Hugo,
and Monique Grant, a magazine journalist. And it is via an interview that we are introduced the universe
of this star and are about to learn about her glamourous and scandalous past.
The story and the lifestyle recalls Elizabeth Taylor’s life. If you recognize the Old Hollywood lifestyle,
it was inspired by Elizabeth Taylor’s life story amongst others.
It is a touching and spellbinding book. There are several things that I liked about this book,
including the style of writing which really reflect the 1950s and the following decades through the
dialogues, the subjects and the characters. We are really entering the world of the Old Hollywood
and its star system. We see how we used to perceive the movie industry back then
as being very glamour, but we also get to see its darker side.
At first, just with the title, I thought it was going to be a romantic book, which is the kind of book
I like the least, but it is not the case at all. The topics and themes covered are extremely important.
The book touches on sexism, feminism, homophobia, public image, death and mourning.
Topics that are still relevant today. Another element that I really liked are the characters.
They are real, authentic, complex and endearing. Towards the end of the book, I even shed
a few tears – without spoiling the story – to tell you how invested I was in this book.
It is not for nothing that it has been recommended by so many people.
It is a book that is very easy to read, quite light even though the themes are important.
I can only recommend this first book!
Next, if you like history or if you are curious to know more about the history of mankind,
I recommend this book, also a bestseller: Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.
This book is about how mankind succeeded in dominating the planet by looking at the history
of our ancestors: their ways of thinking, their actions, basically our heritage.
Towards the end, we also touch on what the future will hold and what it might hold for us if we follow the
evolution curve. What I like a lot about the book is that it is based on facts and research.
The author is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and he combines history and science
to revisit the concepts and the ideas we have about our civilization, the evolution of our civilization and
all the other topics covered in this book. As I just mentioned, the book touches on the history
of our civilization, the creation of kingdoms, cities, towns, the concepts of religion, nation, human rights,
the conception of money, politics and more. The book is quite comprehensive.
And despite the fact that it is quite thick, it is a book that is very easy to read.
There are pictures, illustrations and maps. It is not the kind of book you read in college at all,
which were very monotonous and only stating facts. The author has a good sense of humour,
and again with the illustrations, it makes it very easy to read.
For me it is a favourite, there is also a second book which is more about the future of our civilization.
A nice addition to your book collection if you are interested in the history of humankind.
I forgot to mention, but for Sapiens, I gave it 5 stars.
For the third book, here we have Amélie Nothomb’s Les Aerostats. I gave it 3.5 stars.
Unfortunately you can’t give a half star on Goodreads, so I’m not sure if I put 3 or 4 stars.
This book tells the story of a young student who teaches reading lessons to a high school student with dyslexia.
It is through famous literary works that she will awaken his love for reading.
If you are an Amélie Nothomb fan, you will see that there are some autobiographical nods to it.
In terms of the themes covered, we have the father-son relationship which is quite complex, the love for
literature, for aerostats, the themes of punishment, crime and personal development.
As you can see, the book is quite short and the font size is huge. There are less than 200 pages.
It’s a book that is very easy to read. If you ever want a light read for the summer,
why not read this book. The only things that I find unfortunate are
as it is a short story, the plot ends quickly, and some elements are left incomplete.
At the very beginning, we are introduced to the young student’s roommate who is very unpleasant.
We are witnessing a relationship that is very complicated, but we have no continuation
or conclusion to this by the end of the book. These were the elements that disappointed me.
For the strengths, obviously there is the writing style which is the signature of the author,
and the finesse and the strength of the words. I am a bit between two critiques,
there are both strengths and weaknesses. For me, this book is a 3.5 star,
even though I put a 3 or 4 stars on Goodreads.
For the 4th book, you probably have seen it everywhere these past years too,
it is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.
If you are looking for a guide to help you reach your goals, improve your personal
or professional relationships, and your daily habits, this book might interest you.
Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits are part of the logical and human principles that we forget
to apply in our everyday life, because of stress, hectic routines, our fast-paced lifestyle etc.
What I also like in this book is that there are exercises, here are some examples.
There are charts and exercises where you can write down your goals in a notebook,
such as this one. The author has a good sense of humour, he adds family anecdotes,
with his wife and children, and testimonials, which makes it all more interesting and relatable.
It is a very easy and light read. For me, the advices are not out of this world or revolutionary
since I had already read the concepts in other books or studied them in uni.
They still were good reminders for my everyday activities and lifestyle.
The author also recommends re-reading his book after several months or years
to reapply these tips to our new goals or lifestyle. Since the content of this book
was nothing new to me, I gave it 4 stars. I know a lot of people really liked it.
It would be a nice little addition to your library if you are looking for a efficient self-help book.
Finally, we have the Cycle des Dieux trilogy by Bernard Werber.
I don’t remember the order, but we have Le Mystère des Dieux, Nous les Dieux et le Souffle des Dieux.
Imagine having the power to rewrite and rebuild the history of humanity on earth.
This is what this trilogy offers. The story takes place on a distant island called Aeden,
overlooked by the city of Olympus. So obviously there are going to be the 12 Olympian gods.
This story is about the new cohort of student-Gods, 140 are participating in a competition.
Each student is assigned with a tribe and they have to compete in this competition
so that there can only be one winner, and therefore one winning tribe who will come to live
and evolve on the planet. What is interesting about this book is that,
much like Sapiens, we are seeing the key principles of the basis of a civilization.
With the creation of tribes and in a competition context, the students are learning the arts
of the 12 Olympian gods to give to their tribes. Once again we see the creation of cities,
religions, currency, political systems, values, history, art.
It is really interesting. What I also like very much is that we are witnessing the creation
and evolution of a civilization but created by humans, well ex-humans in this case.
If you have read the Cycle des Anges which is the 2 books before this trilogy,
you will understand why they are ‘ex-humans’ – actually they are all dead,
hence the fact of being student-Gods, but all the same they were humans beforehand.
It is really interesting to see that perspective. Also, the characters are charming.
Again if you have read the cycle of the Angels, they are the same characters.
We have a mix of fictional characters, but also real ones from popular culture,
from the cinematography, literature and of course mythology universe.
The characters are funny and complex, just lovely. And of course, there is a twist!
There is an antagonist who comes and becomes a threat to the students, worse,
he kills some of them. This is not a spoiler, there are reviews that speak about it.
We learn in the last book who this antagonist is.
But yes, this trilogy invites us into an imaginary world and rethinks the questions of death,
reincarnation, religion and mythology. I gave this trilogy 5 stars, I liked it very much.
It’s a gift from Matthew from 2 years ago, and I’m really happy because
I really enjoyed this trilogy and I hope you will like it if you decide to read it.
There you have it, that concludes this little book review.
Bear with me, this was my first time doing a book review, I hope it was still useful.
Since I’ve read a lot of books in the last 3 weeks, I already have 3 or 4 more reviews to film
with 5 books in each review, and I just ordered 6-8 books.
If you are interested, I will be doing more book reviews and hauls.
The next video will be a Sézane haul since with the Archives and an order made
before my accident, I have a dozen pieces to show you.
I hope you are all having a great day and I will be seeing you soon!
