Fellow book readers,
Today the book that I am going to write about is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by author Taylor Jenkins Reid.
The book revolves around the life of an old-age actress, Evelyn Hugo, and her seven marriages. It grapples with the complexity, ambition, love, and Evelyn's strong command of her life and choices.
The book revolves around the life of an old-age actress, Evelyn Hugo, and her seven marriages. It grapples with the complexity, ambition, love, and Evelyn's strong command of her life and choices.
The book has four main characters: Evelyn Hugo, an old Hollywood actress; Monique Grant, an unknown journalist who is picked to write a book on Evelyn Hugo by Evelyn herself; Harry Cameron, a gay producer who is Evelyn's best friend and also one of her husbands; and last but not least, Celia St. James, Evelyn's true love.
Evelyn Hugo is a complex character. You can even call her a morally grey character considering the choices she made in her life. She is pragmatic, if not smart, then cunning, charming, and determined to get what she wants, no matter what the price she has to pay or what boundaries she has to push or cross to achieve her goals. She understood that her beauty or sexuality can get her what she wants, so she utilized it. She was aware of who she was and how much power she had over people. Evelyn is a character who is hard to empathize with but easier to sympathize with. The choices that she makes are hard to understand, but it will always amaze you with how much resilience she has in life. No matter what life throws at her, she never backs down; she deals with it and sacrifices whatever the situation deems fit, but this is also her weakest characteristic. She sacrifices whatever the situation deems fit.
Monique Grant is an unknown journalist who gets chosen by Evelyn Hugo to write her biography and an exclusive interview with her. She is an intelligent and empathic woman who is at first portrayed as someone who is struggling through life due to her recent divorce and unstable career but later starts actualizing her self-worth and growing as a person as her conversations with Evelyn also grow.
Harry Cameron was a character that I personally hold closest to my heart. He is what you would call Evelyn's true best friend and confidant; he's also her fifth husband and also the only one of them who ever loved her truly, even if it was in the platonic sense. Their marriage, though, Lavender, was probably one of the happiest, as they both got their own chance at happiness with their respective homosexual partners.
What I genuinely liked about this book was how bold Evelyn was in her approach towards life. She was this character that I could only dream to be and not be at the same time. Her choices, though questionable, made her who she was at the end, The Evelyn Hugo, but on the contrary, the choices that she made left her at the end alone and at times miserable, with regrets that she could do nothing about.
The book's ending genuinely left me stunned, and I am not even ashamed to say that it made me tear up too, but I salute the kind of book this was, it made me feel all sorts of emotions: love, sadness, anger, frustration, and happiness. This is the first book that stayed with me for a long time after I finished reading it.
Evelyn Hugo is a complex character. You can even call her a morally grey character considering the choices she made in her life. She is pragmatic, if not smart, then cunning, charming, and determined to get what she wants, no matter what the price she has to pay or what boundaries she has to push or cross to achieve her goals. She understood that her beauty or sexuality can get her what she wants, so she utilized it. She was aware of who she was and how much power she had over people. Evelyn is a character who is hard to empathize with but easier to sympathize with. The choices that she makes are hard to understand, but it will always amaze you with how much resilience she has in life. No matter what life throws at her, she never backs down; she deals with it and sacrifices whatever the situation deems fit, but this is also her weakest characteristic. She sacrifices whatever the situation deems fit.
Monique Grant is an unknown journalist who gets chosen by Evelyn Hugo to write her biography and an exclusive interview with her. She is an intelligent and empathic woman who is at first portrayed as someone who is struggling through life due to her recent divorce and unstable career but later starts actualizing her self-worth and growing as a person as her conversations with Evelyn also grow.
Harry Cameron was a character that I personally hold closest to my heart. He is what you would call Evelyn's true best friend and confidant; he's also her fifth husband and also the only one of them who ever loved her truly, even if it was in the platonic sense. Their marriage, though, Lavender, was probably one of the happiest, as they both got their own chance at happiness with their respective homosexual partners.
Celia St. James, the woman who was the greatest true love of Evelyn Hugo. She is a talented, loving, and passionate but stubborn and also a little immature, but her character was the one I could truly understand. Her on-and-off relationship with Evelyn, though beautiful, was at times a little painful to read as they both struggled to be together with how Evelyn kept choosing her career over her and how prideful or stubborn Celia was in her ways.
The book is written in two different timelines, one that goes on in the present and the other that takes us to the past of Evelyn Hugo.
It shows how Old Hollywood's toxic unwritten laws and conditions for women and the LGBT+ community of that era were like.
It shows how Old Hollywood's toxic unwritten laws and conditions for women and the LGBT+ community of that era were like.
What I genuinely liked about this book was how bold Evelyn was in her approach towards life. She was this character that I could only dream to be and not be at the same time. Her choices, though questionable, made her who she was at the end, The Evelyn Hugo, but on the contrary, the choices that she made left her at the end alone and at times miserable, with regrets that she could do nothing about.
The book's ending genuinely left me stunned, and I am not even ashamed to say that it made me tear up too, but I salute the kind of book this was, it made me feel all sorts of emotions: love, sadness, anger, frustration, and happiness. This is the first book that stayed with me for a long time after I finished reading it.
Overall, it is 10/10 read for me. Highly recommend it you all.
(P.s. this book is being turned into by Netflix and if they ruin it? I ain't scared of throwing hands)
Appreciate you all for reading this.
Thank you,
Yours truly,
Aditi
(Read Poets Society)
Aditi
(Read Poets Society)
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