The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I genuinely cried on public transit when I finished this one. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read (think: old school Hollywood glam meets tabloid tell-all meets American Hustle).
Our protagonist, Evelyn, is a reclusive Hollywood icon and the book kicks off with her deciding it’s time to finally put decades of speculation to rest. The first step is to enlist an unknown writer, Monique Grant, to pen her story. The second is to weave a tapestry of her life beginning with making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950’s all the way up to the present day, using each of her (you guessed it) seven husbands as markers for each era of her life.
Evelyn remains a looming larger than life presence throughout – something Jenkins Reid beautifully manages to illustrate through Monique’s understanding of her. She teaches Monique that it’s okay to go for what you want and perhaps most importantly, that it’s dangerous to trust someone before you know the whole story.
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The story is plot twist after plot twist and I have spent every moment since finishing, ranking the husbands on numerous different scales from their intelligence to importance to overall favoritism…
“Doesn’t it bother you? That your husbands have become such a headline story, so often mentioned, that they have nearly eclipsed your work and yourself? That all anyone talks about when they talk about you, are the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo?” And her answer was quintessential Evelyn.
“No,” she told me. “Because they are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo.”
Even after 400 pages, my feelings for Evelyn are so complicated – I hate her almost as much as I love her; but I suspect she’d think that was appropriate (and to me, it’s the mark of a damn good book). This is, for sure, a must read.
