Poetess Library

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid

★★★★★ 

Book 9 of 2023

Paperback

Image from Stephanie Witman blog The Espresso Edition https://theespressoedition.com/seven-husbands-evelyn-hugo/

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“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.”

CONTEXT

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo follows the story of, well, Evelyn Hugo, a fictional old Hollywood star who is 79 years old now and wants to have an interview with a less-known journalist, Monique Grant. The story tells the life of Evelyn Hugo through her telling the story to Monique. Most of the story is about the old Hollywood actress but some parts go through Monique’s perspective too. Throughout the book, you find out what happened with the seven marriages of Hugo and her want, and rise to fame, while illustrating the dark world of Hollywood and what it takes to be an actress through that time. The book is labeled as a historical fiction, but it’s also a romance novel following an unexpected love that you wouldn’t have guessed.

MY THOUGHTS

This book was stunning. The art of writing was great, the way you could read the emotion from the main characters, see the story play out in your mind, and imagine the whole experience of all the characters. And the character developments were just amazing too. Evelyn Hugo would make you love her and sympathize with her, but then make you scream and yell at what she did. This book was so well thought out, so well written, that they is no way I could even imagine giving it any less than a 5-star rating. Truly a magnificent job is done by Taylor Jenkins Ried.

The book made me want to cry, want to laugh, and then want to die in adoration of the love interests, all of them. I knocked the book out in two days, that is how good the book is (even though usually I don’t take that long to read anyway). Once the book was picked up, I couldn’t put it down.

The contrast and eye-opener of the book is the product of genius. The realization that Evelyn as a female going through a divorce gets ridiculed and castrated, and her career falls to the ground. Meanwhile, the man gets free with a career that’s skyrocketing because of the fame that they receive from the news. A great look into what happens to celebrities in real life, how the double standards are in society, and how it affects others. The book was filled with so many plot twists mixed and thrown intertwined with the book. I felt like every few pages I was being thrown into something else that was shocking, it was great. Even at the end, the plot twists were still coming.

Overall, this book was great, I recommend it to anyone who was thinking about reading it.

“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.”