“Never let anyone make you feel ordinary.”
Money, fortune, and fame. Bright lights, cigarette smoke, and champagne. Hollywood dreamboats and fair weather friends. Glitz, glamour, magic, and mess. Love, grief, and betrayal. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo has it all, and then some.
Taylor Jenkins Reid has truly done it again. Evelyn Hugo was breathtaking! It made me think of The Great Gatsby meets Hollywood (Netflix) meets Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). Yet, at the same time it was unlike anything else I have ever read or seen.
It isn’t often that I can say that I read a book from start to finish in one day (and in three sittings), but I was glued to Evelyn’s story like no other. It was the perfect combination of Old Hollywood charisma, secrets, and deceit. With just the right amount of backstabbing and forbidden love, I don’t think I will ever forget this story.
Reid’s storytelling is just stunning, there’s no other word to describe it. Just like in Daisy Jones & The Six (another personal favorite of mine), Reid uses fictional oral history as her mode of storytelling. I don’t know of any other writers that pull off this style so beautifully. I cannot wait for read her newest novel, Malibu Rising. It will be one of my first summer reads when it comes out on June 1st! I love how Reid bases her novels off of real people. She stated that Evelyn Hugo is inspired by two Old Hollywood stars, Elizabeth Taylor (who married eight times to seven husbands) and Ava Gardner (who told her life story to a biographer, only to be released after she died). Similarly, Daisy Jones & The Six is inspired by Fleetwood Mac. A fun tidbit is that Reid’s character Mick Riva, a 60’s singer and Evelyn’s third husband, makes an appearance at one of Daisy’s parties in Daisy Jones, and Malibu Rising is about Mick Riva’s kids! I’m such a nerd about authors including little Easter eggs like that in their novels (like how Sally Rooney put crossover characters in Normal People and Conversations With Friends!).
Evelyn Hugo is a force to be reckoned with, yet so it Monique Grant, the young woman Evelyn handpicked to write her biography. Not only has Evelyn never shared her life story, but she hasn’t shared anything with the press in decades. The book deal has the potential to earn Monique millions and millions of dollars. So why now? Why her? What is Evelyn up to?
The book goes back and forth between Monique’s interview sessions with Evelyn in real-time and bits of the final cut of Evelyn’s biography. There are seven parts of the book- one for each of Evelyn’s husbands. This was such a clever way to section off the book, and it perfectly divided the timeline of Evelyn’s life. The ploy of the seven husbands was remarkable- watching the story unfold was genuinely better than any Hollywood movie I could imagine. I could picture each character vividly and felt like I was sipping milkshakes and lounging in dazzling and hazy rooms behind the scenes right along with the characters. My favorite scene in the book is Harry’s birthday party, a quaint double date picnic with Harry, Evelyn, Celia, and John, just weeks before Evelyn… “ruins everything”, or so she says. As I’m sure other readers will admit, I definitely had a favorite husband. Though I had a soft spot for Rex North and his companionate marriage with Evelyn, mine had to be, of course, the “Brilliant, Kindhearted, Tortured Harry Cameron”. Harry was consistently my favorite character, a calming presence in the whirlwind that was Evelyn’s life. He taught Evelyn that a soulmate is more than a romantic partner. He taught her what friendship was, true blue. His character arc was heartbreaking- I will be thinking about it for a long, long time.
“You do not need to know how fast you’ve been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, ‘it’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.’
So I fell down.
And Harry caught me.”
Evelyn’s urgency to get out her story is the product of a life lived in secret, a life filled with loss, and a life spent feeling lonely and unimportant even as the most beautiful actress in Hollywood.
“Men were never with me for my personality. I’m not suggesting that charming girls should take pity on the pretty ones. I’m just saying it’s not so great being loved for something you didn’t do.”
When it’s just a little too late, Evelyn realizes the mistakes she made, the things she thought were important that, in reality, were life’s most trivial details. She realizes she can never make up all the lost time with the love of her life, the years she spent trying to hide a part of herself, the things she sacrificed just to stay famous. Nonetheless, she regrets nothing except that she didn’t have more time with the people she loved. Evelyn would do everything over again to protect her found family, and she makes sure Monique knows it.
Yes, everything.
“It shouldn’t be wrong, to love you. How can it be wrong?”
“It’s not wrong, sweetheart. They’re wrong.”
You simply have to pick this one up. Best paired with Lana Del Rey, champagne, and an emerald green ball gown.
Rating: 5/5 Oscars
xx, Lauren