I've never heard of that book, but I'm intrigued: what did the author do that made it so obvious on the FIRST page?
t7h is pretty popular, and was recommended on queer booktok so often that i was like "okay ill give this book a chance." its about a old hollywood starlet retelling her life story, her seven husbands and a secret lover, celia, that she kept secret in order to maintain her career as an actress.
im enjoying the book so far (about halfway through), but often what i find with white authors is that the vibes are a just a tiny bit off when they write from the perspective of BIPoC characters. sometimes its outright ignorance or racism, ie. falling back on racial stereotypes when writing BIPoC POVs, instead of doing research. sometimes it's smaller, more implicit things that dont scream 'this is racist' but still kind of are (ie. authors always describing melanated skintone using food terms like mocha, cocoa, caramel etc.) I can understand why this happens, because white people dont have lived experience as being a racialized minority, so writing from perspectives theyre unfamiliar with can be challenging. but authors do that all the time, that is, write from a POV they have no lived experience with (ie. neil gaiman doesnt know what its like to be a ghost, or a god, but he write from those perspectives anyways). so what i think a good author should do if they want to do right by their characters of colour is do a ton of research and/or get a consultant to go over their work for them.
id say page 1 of seven husbands of evelyn hugo is the latter. its hard to pin down and explain what i find off about it because its not explicit. the author is writing from the POV of a biracial journalist, and i think they try to do their best throughout the book to do right by their characters of colour, but sometimes i read it and im like, "girl, what person of colour is thinking this way." this is my very long winded answer you didnt ask for that essentially boils down to, "idk the vibes were off, if you know you know."
i posted a screenshot of page 1 below. when i get around to finishing the book, ill be able to say more, because the main character is latina, and theres some things i feel like the author gets right and some that i think she misses.
