Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo By Taylor Jenkins Reid – Book Review

I bring you all to a real page-turner. This book left a great impact on my heart. After reading 50 pages, I was completely hooked. Published in 2017, there is no wonder that it’s been a bestseller for years now and one of the most popular fiction in the #BookTok world with a large mass fawning over it. I assure you this book will make you compelled to read it.

As Cosmopolitan writes, “Come for the glam old Hollywood vibes; stay for a touching tale of a young reporter and a silver-screen legend.” The New York Times bestselling author and the writer of books like “Malibu Rising” and “Daisy Jones and the Six”, Taylor Jenkins Reid wrote her fifth novel and I think her one of the best works.

After living a life full of glamour and ambition with a lot of scandals, famous Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo is ready to tell her story. She chooses an unknown journalist Monique Grant to write her biography, and no one is more surprised than Monique herself. As the story moves forward, you will get to know in the climax chapters that they have their lives entangled in ways Monique could have never imagined.

Throughout the book, you live through Evelyn’s teenage years, her struggle in the Hell’s Kitchen, losing her virginity to get married and leave her abusive household, her quantum leap in Hollywood to become a star and the personal sacrifices she makes for love and stardom. She is unapologetic about using her sexuality and body for getting roles.

Evelyn is a character that the more you read about her, the more you get enchanted. She is bold, compassionate, sexy and is not afraid to take opportunities with sex in an industry filled with racism and misogyny.

The sections each husband gets and the tabloid extracts which make you feel like reading celebrity gossip are a unique way for a writer to write. Evelyn is known for her scandalous life with her seven husbands, and now she is finally speaking about all those years. Being in the 1970s, she makes herself a self-made woman and sets an example of how women should stand up for themselves and their decisions. She makes Monique a confident and fierce woman in the course of the book.

Reid wrote this story in a manner which is nearly thought-provoking. The two major relationships in this story will make you realize how privileged we are to love someone without any restriction and fear of losing our identity.

What makes this book a real page-turner according to me is themes like friendship, love, marriage, sex, motherhood, and intimacy combined with the social talks of sexuality, racism, domestic abuse and misogyny. This book will give you a hell of a ride with its mixed-genre style.

Despite the fact of being a social recluse for years now, why did Evelyn choose to make her biography? Why Monique Grant? Why did she have seven husbands and what was actually behind all those scandals? Who was her true love behind all those seven marriages? Why does she want this book to be published after her death? All these questions will make you read this book in a few sittings.

Credit – The Paperfruit

• Title: Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo
• Writer: Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Published by: Washington Square Press
• First Published in 2017
• Language: English
• Pages: 400
• Price: ₹489
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Quotes From “Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo” By Taylor Jenkins Reid

“People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth when you can show yourself to them when you stand in front of them bare and their response is ‘you’re safe with me- that’s intimacy.”

“Never let anyone make you feel ordinary.”

“Don’t ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box. Don’t do that.”

You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until somewhat stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”

“I’m under absolutely no obligation to make sense to you.”

“Heartbreak is a loss. Divorce is a piece of paper.”

“I spent half my time loving her and the other half hiding how much I loved her.”

“You can be sorry about something and not regret it,” Evelyn says.”

“Say to them, “Evelyn Hugo just wants to go home. It’s time for her to go to her daughter and her lover, and her best friend, and her mother.” Tell them Evelyn Hugo says goodbye.”

“The world doesn’t give things, you take things.”

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