The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Review

This post includes MAJOR SPOILERS.. So if you were planning to read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, don't read this first. Come back and visit after you've gone through it. Let's compare notes!

So this is one of those books that was being talked about entirely too much for me to show actual interest in. I have a not so mild eversion to things that are mainstream and buzzing. I usually wait for the hype to die down before I watch a series or read a popular book because if I read into all the fan comments and blah blah blah I am usually disappointed when it doesn't reach my high expectations. So I didn't watch Game of Thrones until I could binge watch 5 seasons and started reading the books. That being said, I also take into consideration random, fellow book reader encounters. I love giving book recommendations when a stranger has walked up to me while I am shelf (window) shopping at Barnes & Noble. I get overzealous and recommend entirely too many books to cover a variety of genres because hey, I don't know what this stranger is into. So naturally, when I was in an airport looking at the overpriced books in the terminal gift shop, and a stranger said "Oooo read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo", I ignored my avoidance of popular books and had my uncle buy it for me for my birthday.

Let's Get Into It!

Naturally, the title is intriguing to say the least. The amount of people in the break room at work who read the title and interrupted my mental escape, is a testament to that. But the writing of Taylor Jenkins Reid is good! I was skeptical at first because although there were great quotes and lots of colorful sticky notes placed in the first 1/3 of the book, it was a slow process getting to the point. But, now that I finished it, I definitely understand why it was necessary for character development reasons.

The main characters are a 'nobody' writer (Monique) & a very 'somebody' movie star in her later years who is ready to tell all (Evelyn Hugo). Evelyn Hugo, in this book, is meant to be a household name like Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn. She was a bombshell and got everything she wanted for the most part but had secrets hidden behind the many layers of her complicated life. She didn't want to be labeled or seen as a good person, she just wanted the truth to be out about EVERYTHING now that her loved ones were no longer a part of her life and she was in her later years. She lived her life and she didn't want to hide anything anymore. Her fame gave her everything that she ever thought she wanted but also took the most intimate parts of her life away from her.

I don't want to give away too much detail without another disclaimer sooooo HERE COME THE SPOILERS!

Evelyn Hugo was a closeted bi-sexual in Hollywood during the 50's & 60's. She only ever loved one woman in her entire life but that was the love of her life. She had her husbands as stepping stones in her career as well as some beards to protect her livelihood and reputation but also at the benefit of the men. Whether it was to boost their fame, bragging rights for bagging the bombshell, their own cover for their sexuality, or even just to sell movie tickets in excess, everyone benefitted in some way from the arrangements. While these are spoilers, this book has many more twists and turns and backflips to offer you as you thumb through the pages.

This book touches on domestic abuse, in case that is a trigger for anyone. Also about some substance abuse and the consequences to actions associated.

The storyline was interesting and kept me wanting more details and curious how she would claw her way out of the many situations that Evelyn found herself in. I will admit that I related to Monique a little because I want to write big and glorious things one day but know that the path that I am currently on is unlikely to get me there. She wasn't my favorite character but her development through the story was evident. She went from being someone who was in the passenger seat of her own life to being someone with the confidence to face her problems and demand what she wanted. Which I think made her all the more relatable to me because I am actively working to be more in the mindset to get what I want in this life.

Honestly, I don't have much negative to say about this book. Let's be real, The feminist in me is all about any book that sticks it to men by representing relentless women who overcome adversity and mold their disadvantages into strengths. Also, the ally in me loves books that touch on sexuality and personal identity and the struggles and sacrifices that are made to protect the beings involved.

Side Tangent (Still Relevant):

Coming from a society that doesn't accept homosexuality and groups any deviation from the straight and narrow as GAY, I found it refreshing that Evelyn wanted to be depicted as exactly what she was. Bisexual. Not lesbian, not gay, but bisexual. She understood that the existence is more complicated than black and white terms. She loved some of her husbands but the love of her life was the ONE woman that she was with. The book is set in a time that there weren't many people out of the closet and the famous ones who came out were reduced to a title and lost the appeal to the Hollywood that existed in those times. They were forced to stay quiet and hide or else lose everything that they fought for. This story is beautiful in the way that it shows the struggles she faced but also the lengths that she was willing to go for her best friends who she gave her heart. She did whatever she had to do in order to protect her 'unconventional' family and it cost her years spent without them.

Evelyn is a complex character who loved deeply and hurt immensely. She was also a cutthroat bitch who used people to her advantage. It is part of what I liked about it her though. She wasn't afraid to be herself and the people who were playing pawns in her game, knew they where they stood and why. She was unapologetically comfortable in her skin and knew her strengths as well as her weaknesses.

Well, without anything negative to say, let's get into some noteworthy quotes because that's what I do in my book reviews.

Noteworthy Quotes (There are A LOT for this one... sorry [not sorry])

"That night, after his secretary left for the day, I was laid across his desk, with my skirt around my hips and Ari's face between my legs. It turned out Ari had a fetish for orally pleasing underage girls. After about seven minutes of it, I pretended to erupt in reckless pleasure. I couldn't tell you whether it was any good. But I was happy to be there, because I knew it was going to get me what I wanted. If the definition of enjoying sex means that it is pleasurable, then I've had a lot of sex that I didn't enjoy. But if we're defining it as being happy to have made the trade, then, well, I haven't had much I hated."

There are a couple of quotes within this book that I believe have a good representation of the way that some women perceive sex. Evelyn often used her body or sexual allure to get what she needed to further her career. While most women aren't letting old men go down on them in order to become famous, there is a link, in my opinion, to the way that sex appeal (even if no physical contact is made) plays such a huge role in the live's of women. I am not saying that it doesn't occur for men but they have an unfair advantage of being born with privilege and 'power'. We have to fight for it. I wouldn't have made a lot of the decisions that she made, but I can't say I didn't understand the mindset that she was in.

"Intimacy is impossible without trust. And we would have been idiots to trust one another."

Just damn good writing.

"Do you love me, Evelyn Hugo? he asked."

"More than anything in the world. Do you love me Don Adler?"

"I love your eyes, and your tits, and your talent. I love the fact that you've got absolutely no ass on you. I love everything about you. So to say yes would be an understatement."

..... Don pulled me close and put his mouth to my ear, whispering, "Me and you. We will rule this town."

"We were married for two months before he started hitting me."

I remember reading this and my heart sank. It made me think of the people I have loved that were absolutely terrible for me. The feeling of loving that person more than I ever should have and wondering why their loved felt so painful in return. It made me feel for her and it gave a clear depiction of how appearances could be so deceiving. Two famous and beautiful movie stars who 'had it all' and looked perfect together, were actually in a toxic and abusive relationship that nobody was aware of. Taylor Jenkins Reid did a good job at creating complex characters... I wasn't the biggest fan of the person that Evelyn Hugo was but reasons she was the way that she was, was mapped out on the pages before my eyes. My heart broke for her sooooo many times.

"Don made love like a king, truly. With the confidence and power of someone in charge of a fleet of men. I melted underneath him. In that moment, for him, I'd have done anything he wanted. He had flipped a switch in me. A switch that changed me from a woman who saw making love as a tool into a woman who knew that making love was a need. I need him. I need to be seen. I came alive under his gaze."

Oof. To be loved by someone you love is a feeling that I have never been able to scratch the surface on explaining. But somehow, this touches on an aspect of that.

"For a brief moment, I wonder if I would have listened to him if he hadn't died. Would I have clung to his every word so tightly if his advice had felt so unlimited."

Anyone who has lost a loved one and can still hear them saying something small but so deeply profound, can feel the raw combination of sadness and happiness intertwined in this small statement.

"I wanted to give her a lot of things. I wanted what I had to be hers. I wondered if this was what it felt like to love someone. I already knew what it meant to be in love with someone. I'd felt it, and I'd acted it. But to love someone. To care for them. To throw you lot in with theirs and think, Whatever happens, it's you and me."

Evelyn had loved before and experienced so much love in different forms but when she loved the RIGHT person, HER person, it was a different kind of experience. She didn't know that it was even love in the sense of wanting to be with that person but she displayed the attachment long before she could even admit it to herself. They were friends. They were best friends. They built on a strong foundation of liking eachother before they loved eachother and that was what made it everlasting. I thought something was wrong with second guessing or questioning your feelings when they are so evident, but honestly I think it is a testament of how good things are. When you are used to turmoil and illusions, empty promises and lack of support, then healthy and happy feels uncomfortable for awhile. It's an adjustment. But the fact that she loved before and was hurt many times, didn't take away from the love that she found later in life. It was just different in almost every aspect.

"There was no denying that he was going to be the most handsome man there. But I was tiring of him. What's that saying? Behind every gorgeous woman, there's a man sick of screwing her? Well, it goes both ways. No one mentions that part."

Taylor Jenkins Reid voices the inner thoughts of many a woman. She highlights the complexities of putting up a facade and avoiding the inevitable demise of a toxic pairing. Her husband was a beautiful man and everybody envied their relationship and good fortune they shared (on the outside). But they were broken behind closed doors and it was displayed very clearly by Evelyn's narrative.

"Don't ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box."

She just wanted to be seen for who she was. Isn't that all any of us really want?

"Heartbreak is loss. Divorce is a piece of paper."

Evelyn (well... Taylor Jenkins Reid) was very good at clearly depicting the problem and separating or clarifying detail in a situation. There were quite a few profound moments that were presented with bluntness in short phrases that took blurred lines and made them bold distinctions. There was no arguing with her sound logic if you were capable of removing the emotions involved.

"I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, considering both how beneath me this opportunity was and how lucky I was to be given it. It's a hard business, reconciling what the truth used to be with what the truth is now."

Evelyn was the creator of her own path. She was blunt when speaking with others but also in her internal dialog. She was able to humble herself in undesirable situations but knew it was necessary to do so in order to elevate herself later. She was a brilliant and creative woman. It was incredible to see the messes she made but also the ways she cleaned them up.

"Imagine if every single woman on the planet wanted something in exchange when she gave up her body. You'd all be ruling the place. An armed populace. Only men like me would stand a chance against you. And that's the last thing those assholes want, a world run by people like you and me." ........ "We're all whores, really, in some way or another. At least in Hollywood. Look, there's a reason she's Celia Saint James. She's been playing that good-girl routine for years. The rest of us aren't so pure. But I like you this way. I like you impure and scrappy and formidable. I like the Evelyn Hugo who sees the world for what it is and then goes out there and wrestles what she wants out of it. So, you know, put whatever label you want on it, just don't change. That would be the real tragedy."

I genuinely liked some of her husbands until they showed their true colors. But Harry? Oh, Harry I loved through and through. He was Evelyn's best friend. Her confidant. Her chosen family. The absolute best! At her best and her worst, Harry was by her side, speaking life into her and catching her when she fell. He loved her for who she was and she loved him for who he was. It was a perfect match in imperfect circumstances.

"I wonder if this is true, not because my mom has ever really lied to me but because it's just so hard for me. to imagine."

Monique has a moment while talking to her mom that makes her question the way that she sees herself. Her mom is her biggest fan and support system and is complimenting her and adds something about what her dad would have thought if he were still around. I think we have all had a moment when someone who sees us in the best of lights, tells us something that doesn't match our inner narrative and we say to ourselves 'Wow! I didn't even think of myself as that. Am I that great?' The spectrum of relatable human experiences in this book is dope.

"But Celia only saw things in black and white. She liked women and only women. And I liked her. And so she often denied the rest of me. She liked to ignore the fact that I had truly loved Don Adler once. She liked to ignore the fact that I had made love to men and enjoyed it. She liked to ignore it until the very moment she decided to be threatened by it. That seemed to be her pattern. I was a lesbian when she loved me and a straight woman when she hated me."

Her sexuality even caused issues in her truest relationship. Even the person she loved the most, who also loved her back the most, didn't see her entirely for who she was and it caused tension in their relationship.

"If things got too tense, I tended to back off before they came to a head. I would tell her I loved her and I couldn't live without her, and then I'd take my top off, and that usually ended the conversation. For all her posturing, Celia had one thing in common with almost every straight man in America: she wanted nothing more than to get her hands on my chest."

Taylor Jenkins Reid draws the connection between straights and gays by using Evelyn's 'greatest' asset, her chest/body. She knocks down the wall of gay vs. straight by making it about human desire. A common goal and desire of both gay and straight people within their society. It's brilliant.

"It's always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly."

OOF. Once again, all the feels! Humans are funny creatures indeed.

"Don was the sort of man who was always going to be handsome, no matter what happened to him. His good looks were just that loyal."

Great writing!

"I blamed you for the things you did to keep our secrets. But the truth is, each time you stopped the outside world from coming into our life, I felt immense relief. And all my happiest moments were orchestrated by you."

I love to read love letters. Honestly, just makes me all mushy inside.

"Everyone sort of assumes that when faced with life-or-death situations, you will panic. But almost everyone who's actually experienced something like that will tell you that panic is a luxury you cannot afford. In the moment, you act without thinking, doing all you can with. the information you have. It's when it's over that you scream. And cry. And wonder how you got through it. Because most likely, in the case of real trauma, your brain isn't great at making memories. It's almost as if the camera is on but no one's recording. So afterward, you go to review the tape, and it's all but blank."

Trauma is a hell of a thing. Sometimes I am amazed by how much my mind has deleted in self-preservation. I don't remember bits of my life until there's some random trigger that brings it all rushing back and I'm like HOLY SHIT. That quote sums that up pretty damn well.

"I think being yourself - your true, entire self - is always going to feel like you're swimming upstream."

Humans tend to put up walls to protect themselves. They look entirely different from person to person but we all have barriers that we built for whatever reason. It is extremely liberating when you get comfortable in your true self and stop putting on a show for the sake of others. But, it is extremely uncomfortable as well because society hasn't trained us to be ourselves, it has trained us to be acceptable to the construct of other peoples' opinions and beliefs, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. Society is a box full of a bajillion shapes and sizes trying to fit into a uniform square hole. The sooner you realize that no one cares and everyone is dealing with their own shit, the better off you will be. Happier in your own self.

"When you write the ending, Monique, make sure the reader understands that all I was ever really looking for was family. Make sure it's clear that I found it. Make sure they know that I am heartbroken without it."

The money and fame and everything she ever strived for didn't make her happy. Her family and the genuine bonds she created is what made her life epic and worth living. This book is written in a brilliant way in which it is Evelyn telling her story to Monique for Monique to write the book about her life but the end result is that this IS the book that she wrote. (Obviously these aren't real people. But it's still pretty damn cool.)

"No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they're also painfully unoriginal."

We will end the quotes with a perfect Evelyn Hugo burn. She was so good at calling things as they were and accepting the reality at hand rather than the ones created in the mind. She wasn't afraid to call people on their bullshit and that is a hell of a super power.

My final notes on the sticky note attached to the front cover? : 385 pages of brilliance. Taylor Jenkins Reid mastered the art of putting human emotion and complexity into the ink on pages. She pulled at the heart strings while making you battle with love and hate for each and every character along the way. She managed to develop each character in depth and show that life is a constant battle of decisions and consequences. I loved this book once it got going. The only annoyance was how slow it was in the beginning but it was also very necessary for the big picture.

I would rate this book 8.5/10. Definitely on the books I would recommend list!

It was a great pallet cleanser after reading the cringe that was The Time Traveler's Wife. If you have read it, check out my review & let's compare notes: https://www.controlledchaoscollective.com/post/the-time-traveler-s-wife-a-review