Hello > Reviews (16)

I hadn’t bought Hello! magazine for years. I think the main reason is because I always considered it to be too expensive - at £2 a copy, I think that it is far too expensive for a weekly magazine. However, the other day I decided to treat myself to a different magazine (I always buy the same ones and so fancied something else) and so chose Hello as featured the Middleton’s on their family holiday and I wanted to be nosy.

I am fascinated with the Royals as I just love having a nosy and seeing how they live their lives and what they have been up to and so I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the magazine, which did take up a huge part of the magazine. There was also a lot of features on other countries Royal Members, which I wasn’t interested in as I had no idea who they were and so it seemed a bit pointless to me. I loved reading about all our Royals though.

I would say that this magazine is more for the middle-class person as it is quite classy and features a lot of ‘Royalty’ and rich celebrities. I noticed that there are no ‘rude words’ or offensive language. For example there was a tiny article regarding Tulisa and her ‘famous tape’. Whilst it was all ‘massive front page’ news on other trashy magazines and called a ‘sex tape’, Hello was calling it an ‘intimate home video’. If you understand what I mean.

I would also say that this magazine is suitable for all ages, as it features people of all ages; The Queen, and older celebrities, whereas usual celebrity magazines would only focus on younger celebrities.

I like that the magazine is very respectful towards Royal members and celebrities. It only features positive stories and focuses mainly on the good rather than the bad. This is huge difference when compared to other celebrity magazines, who thrive of giving celebrities bad publicity. It’s refreshing to see the magazine focusing on the positive things the stars have done and doesn’t feature anything negative - it gets a bit too much when you read magazines which only feature bad things the stars have done. So well done Hello for only featuring positive articles.

The magazine features expensive celebrity homes - I love having a nosy around. This particular issue featured Steven Gerrard’s home as well as the house where Downton Abbey is filmed - I couldn’t believe how grand this house was.

The magazine is also a fan of celebrity weddings and babies. In this particular issue we meet Una from The Saturdays’ new baby and we see the wedding of a Hollyoaks actress.

I read a huge amount of magazines and a lot of the time, I like ‘mini articles’ as they are easy to read and you don’t have to think to much. I found that the articles in Hello are very lengthy and the language isn’t that simple either; when I am reading it, I have to think about what I am reading as there is so much font. I can’t just sit and read. I did find at times that some articles were too long and so ended up being boring. I wouldn’t really call this magazine a ‘light-read’ in terms of the amount of text it contains - although it does have a huge amount of pictures which are good to look at.

One thing which I found with the pictures is that they give quite an in-depth description of what is in the photo - although it’s pointless information. For example there is a photo of Kate Middleton skiing and it has a full photo of her and the caption says something along the lines of ‘Kate wears red trousers, white jacket, and is wearing her hair loose under her hat - she is skiing down the hill’ - well we can see all that from the photo ourselves, so I don’t know why they have to tell us in the caption.

There are quite a few adverts in this magazine; whilst the adverts are quite affordable places; Next, Loreal and Clarks etc, the products (especially the fashion ones) they advertise are very expensive. Some of the clothes they advertise cost hundreds and some of them thousands, and so it’s obvious that this magazine isn’t aimed at us mere ‘normal’ people. I enjoy reading about all these rich people though.

The magazine is large in size; whilst in a way this is good as you can see the pictures clearly etc, the size does make reading it slightly difficult as it is so large that you can’t ‘hold it up’. It needs to be placed on a table etc. The size also means that it won’t fit in your bag unless you fold it.

Other features include; horoscopes, fashion articles (although not too many), and recipes etc.

I did enjoy this magazine to some extent. I love how ‘classy’ it is compared to other magazines. I would buy it again but only as an occasional treat.

Thanks for reading!

April 2012

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