Review: 'The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo' by Taylor Jenkins Reid

A reclusive movie star, an intrepid young reporter, and a secret love that defied the rules. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has all the elements for a great read. It is no wonder that it become as popular as it did and has such an extensive fanbase. It is fun, daring, and heartfelt and it reads like a breeze. The expectations around it, however, are so high that it becomes almost impossible for the novel to quite meet them. Thanks to the person who finally lend me their copy and made me sit down and read it!

Pub. Date: 4/02/2020
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

I have a major aversion to reading books while they're hot. I either need to read them before, as an ARC or before the world-at-large discovers them, or years after the hype. This isn't just true for books, btw, I also still haven't watched Easy A even though everyone says I'll love it, because it's just too much. When there is such a strong public reaction to a book or film, it momentarily turns me off a book out of self-preservation. I want to be able to form my own opinion and I find it hard to do that when the opinions of others are so loud. The same was true for The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I literally couldn't go on Twitter without seeing opinions about it, and all those opinions were positive. What made it a little more difficult for me was because the hype also revealed the twist way in advance and made the book sound incredibly heavy but also very important, theme-wise. (Spoiler: as the twist is so well known, I'm also going to discuss it!) I got a little scared that if I didn't like it I'd fall off the bandwagon or that my opinion would simply be considered incorrect. Is this a little overdramatic? Most definitely. But it's what stopped me from reading Reid's book all this time. Now that I have read it I'm kind of glad I waited because, well, I'm merely whelmed.

Monique, out of the blue, is called into her editor's office. THE Evelyn Hugo has requested her, specifically, to write an article on her upcoming auction. Evelyn Hugo is a star, has been a star for decades, married seven times and still mysterious. Monique jumps at the chance to prove herself but can't help but wonder why Evelyn picked her. As Evelyn and Monique meet, it becomes clear Evelyn has other plans. Forget the article. She wants Monique to write an unflinching biography of her and is willing to reveal everything, from Hollywood's dark side to her one true love. By the end, now only will Monique have answers to this, she will also know why she is the one who was chosen by Evelyn. Monique is only tangentially the protagonist of The Seven Husbands. The book really is all about Evelyn, which is absolutely fine, but it was actually Monique who drew me in and I wished I had got to spend a little bit more time getting to know Monique. However, the way Monique's story introduces us to Evelyn works very well, and the way the book switches back and forth between Monique and Evelyn's recounting of her life, also goes incredibly smoothly. 

Divided into different parts, each dedicated to a husband, we discover the seedy underbelly of Hollywood as well as the complexity of navigating it as a woman of colour and someone who has to hide their sexual orientation. Evelyn is a fascinating woman and the kind of female character I adore. She is complex, she operates within shades of grey and is fully aware of that. She will use her body and her intelligence to get where she wants, to protects what she treasures, and to keep herself safe. She is not traditionally likeable, in that many of her actions are hard to justify, but she is intriguing, which is the whole point of her. But this is where my main gripe comes in. I found the fist chapter of her story, describing how she got to Hollywood, to be the most interesting, because once the glitz, glamour, and wealth comes in, it lost its immediacy for me. Evelyn is still a woman under pressure, still disadvantaged because of her gender, ethnicity, etc. but she is now also richer than most. She has options. This removed the urgency for me, as well as the sense of threat she herself feels. This is largely a "me"-problem, in the sense that wealth in no way removes all difficulty. But I'm finding it very hard lately to relate to rich people, so a lot of this slid off of me. I didn't get attached to Evelyn and Celia because of it and while their story was affecting, I just couldn't connect to its core due to the trappings around it. This is why I wish Monique had featured more because she did feel more real. I needed her presence to be more grounding, but instead she felt more like a frame narrative.

The Seven Husbands is, in many ways, flawless. I was sucked in by Taylor Jenkins Reid's writing from the beginning. It is fresh, direct, and very empathetic. Her descriptions are stunning and the way she evokes the glamour of Hollywood, the details of it all, was very vivid. It's why I kept reading without a problem. There is also a nice snappiness to the dialogue, much of it does feel like it's from a film. I occasionally felt the "real people don't talk like this, but I like seeing it on the screen"-itch, which did nothing to dim my enjoyment but once again stopped me from really attaching to the novel. The Seven Husbands covers so many interesting themes that I was genuinely disappointed to not get quite into it. I just once again felt like we weren't quite going deep enough? The way Evelyn thinks of her own body, as a tool both for advancement and enjoyment, is fascinating. The way Evelyn thinks of her own heritage, at once repressed and at once something necessary, is fascinating. The perpetual struggle of being a desirable woman but not a woman that desires is fascinating. All these things come to the fore really strongly in The Seven Husbands but it never went quite as deep as I wanted. I think what my downfall here is that the hype affected me nonetheless. I had expected a very intense, thought-provoking, and complex novel and I only got that in part. The novel is a lot more breezy than I expected and so I found myself merely whelmed. I had fun reading it, raced through it in an evening, and then was left with a sense of slight disappointment. That doesn't mean The Seven Husbands isn't a great book and that it isn't important that it addresses all the themes it does. It's a valuable book and I'm glad for the representation it provides. I just wish I could have gone into it without the high expectations the hype created.

I give this novel...

3 Universes!

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a very entertaining and well-written novel which tells a beautiful love story. Its female characters are interesting and ambiguous figures, which I very much enjoyed. I guess I had come to expect more, however, which is not the novel's, or anyone's fault, but my own.