BOOK REVIEW: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

SYNOPSIS

“Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life.

When she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late 80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.”

MY REVIEW:

I thought it would be the story of a capricious Hollywood starlet who married 7 times, it made me think of Elizabeth Taylor who was married 8 times to 7 different men, well, I was wrong.

The narrative frame is built on a double temporality and is told from 2 points of view, in the manner of an interview: from Monique’s, the White African-American journalist, hired to tell the story of Evelyn, and Evelyn’s, the actress of Cuban’s origin, who wants at all costs her story to be known, but in her own way, without filter. She finally wants to lift the veil on her life and tell it with TRUTH and honesty. She wants to explain why those 7 marriages to those men.  The 2 present tenses that intertwine in this story are the present including Monique and Evelyn, and the one with the story of Evelyn that spans on 7 decades.

I loved this book which deals with multiple themes such as passion, glory, divorce (it’s pretty obvious), races, homosexuality and bisexuality, misogyny, suicide, friendship, journalism, domestic violence, alcoholism, appearances, the industry of cinema sets, the patriarchal world, having to conform to the standards of society (the story of Evelyn takes place from the 50s until today ) and a very big love story, a love forbidden in those years, the love of her life, with which she could never openly display herself, so it is at the same time a great tragedy.

I spent half of my time loving her and the other half hiding how much I loved her

This is the story of an avant-garde woman, of a character much more complex than the story lets us believe at the beginning and I was captivated by this PERSONA from the start, because she’s something else believe me! I got caught up in the realism of the story, I felt like I was really being told the story of a former Hollywood star.

In conclusion, I really like this author, Taylor Jenkins Reid, from whom I recently read Daisy Jones & the Six, the story of a cult music band, also told as if it was an interview. It was one of my last “coup de coeur”. A must read! 

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I’m going to buy another one of her books soon, probably Maybe in Another Life or Forever, Interrupted.

You know the joy of discovering a new author and then finding out she wrote other books, well if you’re like me, you cannot wait to get your hands on it.  That’s what we call #Bookworm Bliss 😊

Hope you’ll love it as much as I did. Please leave me a comment. I love to read you.