The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Book Review
Evelyn Hugo, a glamorous movie icon in the 50s and 60s is finally ready to sit down and talk about her scandalous life involving around her seven marriages. She decides to get it published as a memoir and wants Monique Grant to write it for her.
Monique Grant is not exactly at the top of the world. She is a mere reporter at Vivant and not a popular one in the journalism community. This makes her question – Why her?
Her husband, David has left her. Her career is going nowhere. So, Monique is determined to grab this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, she listens as Evelyn unfurls her life story – from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to marrying seven husbands along the way. Her life is full of love, loss, lies, and secrets.
As Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, Monique comes to know the tragic way in which her life is intersected with Evelyn’s.
With everything out in open, it is up to Monique to make a choice.
Read the book to find out more.
“It strikes me as a unique form of power to say your own name when you know that everyone in the room, everyone in the world, already knows it.”
– Taylor Jenkins Reid, the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo
This is the first book I read in 2021 and calling it a great start would be an understatement.
I loved it. The concept is so fresh and complex. We would be in constant conflict with our emotions throughout the book.
Forty pages in, I had two questions I needed answers to.
- Who was the love of Evelyn’s life? Which one was the real one?
- Why did Evelyn particularly want Monique to cover her life story?
We only get a skimmed version of her past life with her seven husbands at the beginning of the book but that is the public perception of her life. And when this perception is fed to us, we immediately have an image of her in our head, and it is not particularly a good one.
To read men without women book review, click here: Men without Women – An interesting collection of 7 short stories
At first, I judged Evelyn for her actions but then realized how desperate she would have been to get out of her hometown that she did such actions. It is exactly what she mentions about the reason for her biography – to clear the made-up image of hers.
Evelyn Hugo did some questionable things. But she did it to survive in the industry. What started as a dream of her mother’s turned into her wanting to be famous in the industry. The lines blurred along the way and she was aware of it.
Evelyn Hugo loved being the center of attention. But her character changed when she met a person. The only person she ever loved. It’s funny how love changes people in different ways.
It is around this time that I got the answer to the first question. The one person whom she truly loved.
What I loved about Evelyn is her attitude. The attitude a woman had to possess in order to get equal respect and attention as a male actor would get in order to survive in the industry.
She always had a solution to everything. She is always calculative of her image. She wanted to be in control of her life. She did not want anyone to possess that kind of power over her.
We all see the glamorous and shiny side of Hollywood. We never see the ugly side. Evelyn’s life shows the ugly side of Hollywood.
Out of the many characters in this book, my favorite is Harry Cameron. That man is a gentleman. He was there for Evelyn from the beginning and he was there not just for her looks but for her personality – all of her pretty and all of the ugly too.
There is a phrase called ride or die. Harry fits perfectly into this phrase. He really was Evelyn’s ride or die.
“You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”
– Taylor Jenkins Reid, the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo
It also centers on an important topic that was seen as taboo back then. This book is also about Evelyn discovering herself and standing for what is right but from behind the scenes.
Reading through, I disagreed with Evelyn every time she said she is not a good person. Yes, she did some questionable things in the past but so does everyone. No one is perfect.
But, when her story comes to an end and she reveals why she wanted Monique to write her book, I said to myself, “oh, Evelyn! You messed up big time.”
I suddenly put myself in Monique’s position and I just couldn’t come to a conclusion of what I might have done if I was her.
Evelyn Hugo is a complex person. We cannot describe her as kind or unkind. We cannot say if she is good or bad. She is somewhere in between. We all are. We all have good and bad in us.
The actions we do will definitely catch up to us one day in the most unexpected way. And we must own it up.
I would call this book “A Journey”
I would rate this book a 5 on 5. I recommend this book to everyone.
To get your copy click here: the seven husbands of evelyn hugo
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