I Read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Here’s What I Thought (Spoilers Ahead)

Okay, I know I’m extremely late to the party with reading this book but, in my defence, its been a busy year. Anyway, I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid last month and I wanted to write a little bit about what I thought. I’m going to avoid spoiling the finer details because you’ll not have a reason to read the book otherwise. However, I will be spoiling one or two major things, you’ve been warned. But before we get into the details, a basic explanation of the plot for those of you that have somehow never heard of this book.

Summary

Evelyn Hugo is an Old Hollywood icon, with a career spanning decades, but no one has seen or heard from her in years. So when Monique Grant, a junior reporter for Vivant, is personally requested by Evelyn to interview her about a charity auction, it causes raised eyebrows all round. When Monique arrives for the interview, Evelyn reveals the interview was a ruse. Instead, Monique is going to be writing a book. A tell-all chronicling Evelyn Hugo’s entire life, including her seven marriages.

My Thoughts

I’ll preface this by saying I absolutely loved this book, and I would even go so far as to say it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a while. The main storyline, and all the subplots were interwoven perfectly, and I honestly didn’t see the twist at the end coming (more on that later on). I particularly liked this book because the romance has a happy ending, sort of, which you don’t often see in this kind of story. I thought it was well-written, with good character development and a plot that flowed nicely. Now, let’s talk specifics!

Narrative Style

I don’t know about you guys but I LOVE a split narrative. Something about it creates suspense in my mind, and I get equally invested in all parts of the story. Seven Husbands is split into two narratives; the present from Monique’s point of view, and the past, which is Evelyn telling her story. This is called an embedded narrative (admittedly I had to google this) which means that there is a story within the story. An example of this is the 1997 film Titanic; in the present day we see Rose recounting the events that led to her having the necklace, and the film switches into the past, where we see Rose and Jack (😍) aboard the Titanic before the end of the film comes back to present day Rose throwing the necklace in the ocean (which, why would you do that?). Anyway, I love a story within a story, and multiple narrators, especially if there’s some kind of flashback involved.

This switching is all done within volumes of the novel. Each volume is named after one of Evelyn’s seven husbands, as she has said that is probably the easiest way to categorise parts of her life. So not only do we have Evelyn telling her story within the novel, we also have the sections of the novel named after the husbands, which is how Monique says she is going to structure the biography she’s been commissioned to write. Very meta.

Characters

Evelyn Hugo

What better way than to start with the main character? Evelyn Hugo is definitely my favourite character in the novel, and not just because she’s the protagonist. I’m a huge fan of Old Hollywood actresses, and it’s clear to see that Reid has drawn inspiration from many of them to create Evelyn Hugo, including Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner. There’s just something about Evelyn’s character that draws you in. Her journey from an abused kid living in Hell’s Kitchen to world-famous movie star is a captivating one and explains so much about her character development throughout the story. Evelyn has an uncanny ability to twist anything so that she comes out of it on top and relatively unscathed, and while she has to do some morally ambiguous things for that to happen, I think it’s an admirable trait regardless.

Evelyn is bisexual. A fact that is explicitly stated multiple times throughout the novel, something that I love about this book. So often in media the word bisexual is skirted around and hinted at but never directly said, which is annoying, to put it mildly. But here, we see Evelyn say it herself, and even talk about the issues she faces surrounding her sexuality (which I’ll talk about later on). Being bi, I appreciate this representation more than I can put into words, and that’s probably the main reason I love Evelyn so much.

Celia St James

Celia St James is (spoiler alert) Evelyn’s main love interest. I spent quite a bit of the novel going back and forth on whether I actually liked Celia or not. In my opinion, this is a mark of good writing, as her character development was realistic and believable and sometimes it takes a while to like a character. The fact that her development wasn’t linear, and she sometimes regressed into the version of her that I didn’t particularly like, ironically made me like her all the more. Sometimes Celia would slip back into who she was, which is okay, but she grows from the experience as well, and becomes a better person because of it, which I loved.

Coming from a well-to-do family in the South, Celia is sometimes referred to as a ‘Georgia Peach’, a reference to her personality and style as well as where she’s from. Despite coming from a classically American family, Celia has issues with it. She is looked down on by her family for her acting career, as they believe working to be ‘undesirable’. Personally, I think this influences a lot of Celia’s actions during the course of the story. Her ‘America’s Sweetheart’ image contrasts well with Evelyn’s sex symbol status, which is part of what makes them such an interesting couple to read.

Harry Cameron

Harry Cameron, Husband No.5, and Evelyn’s oldest friend in Hollywood. I like Harry. His lavender marriage with Evelyn was probably one of my favourite parts of the novel, if only because it facilitated the relationship between Evelyn and Celia. Harry has been there for Evelyn since the very beginning of her career to the end of his life which, in a society as fickle as the Hollywood portrayed in the novel, actually means something. He seems like a genuinely nice guy, and was always willing to help Evelyn without question. They had a true friendship that went above and beyond the surface level friendship that’s all too common in high society.

One thing I love about Harry is the strength of his character. As a gay man, his decision to become a producer in Hollywood can’t have been an easy one, especially with homosexuality still being illegal. We see his true strength when the love of his life, John Braverman, dies unexpectedly. Harry is forced to publicly mourn him as a friend, and not a lover, which takes more strength and courage than most of us could muster up. Whilst Harry completely falls apart privately, he keeps it together enough to be present for his family, showing again how strong he must be; even in his darkest time he does not abandon his family, the people that love him.

Monique Grant

Now I won’t lie, but I for most of the novel I never really registered Monique as a character. Not until the very end anyway. In my mind she was just a plot device, a catalyst that allowed Evelyn’s story to be told. In fact, I paid that little attention to the details of her character that I forgot she’d even mentioned her father at all until the plot twist (which then blew me away completely because I’d forgotten all the details that would’ve made it obvious).

That’s not to say she’s not an interesting character, objectively speaking. Born to a white mother and a black father, Monique talks several times about how she has struggled with where she fits in. She also talks about how her parents inspired her to become a writer, leading to a successful career in journalism. Monique mentions the possibility that Evelyn has chosen her for the interview because of a piece she wrote about cancer patients’ right to die when they choose. She discounts the idea pretty quickly, but she does mention that this is the piece that got her her current job. Monique mentions that it is the piece she is proudest of, and I think it says a lot about her character that she gave a voice to a group of people whose complexities are often overlooked.

The Plot (and the Plot Twist)

Now, let’s talk plot details.

Firstly, Evelyn and Celia. Frenemies to lovers? That’s the good stuff. One of my favourite ways a romance can develop. Evelyn and Celia go from jealous co-stars to cordial friends to lovers to enemies and halfway back again throughout the novel and, honestly, I could read it over and over without getting bored. The two meet when they are both cast in Little Women; Evelyn as Jo and Celia as Beth. I’m just glad Celia wasn’t playing Amy because that definitely wouldn’t have helped me like her. (How Florence Pugh got me to actually like Amy March I’ll never know). Initially, Evelyn is jealous of Celia because she has a lot of natural talent and Evelyn is scared that she’ll be upstaged. She is, of course, and Celia wins Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars for her performance as Beth. On the other hand, Celia is envious of Evelyn’s beauty and her ability to get whatever she wants.

However, they move past their initial differences and start a relationship. It’s tumultuous to begin with, both of them struggling with hiding their relationship while Evelyn’s career is struggling (the fault of Husband No.2) and rumours begin to spread about them. Evelyn takes drastic measures to dispel the rumours (enter Husband No.3), and the consequences cause Celia to leave her. After that, they don’t speak for five years, although Evelyn’s career recovers and both of them flourish individually. I actually liked that they separated for a while; it gave them both space to grow as characters and as people. We only get Evelyn’s side of the story, in which she mentions asking after Celia fairly often, and we can only assume that Celia does the same. I would like to assume that anyway.

Evelyn and Celia reunite when Evelyn marries Harry. Harry’s lover, John Braverman, is married to Celia. They spend several blissful years together; Harry living with John and Celia with Evelyn, although publicly maintaining the facade of being two heterosexual couples. With Celia’s blessing, Harry and Evelyn have a child, a daughter named Connor. The four of them come to a kind of co-parenting agreement; switching off childcare depending on who is working where. I like this section of the book; everyone is happy, and all their careers are going well. It’s almost everything all of them have ever wanted and, although they cannot be themselves in public, they are content.

It all comes crashing down around them when Evelyn does something to further her career without consulting Celia before hand, and she realises her mistake as soon as she’s committed it. Celia leaves her again and Evelyn marries Husband No.6. It’s six years before she sees Celia again and by then it’s almost too late. Celia has only a few years left to live, but Evelyn is determined to spend them with her. This is bittersweet, and perhaps their entire love story is the definition of ‘right person, wrong time’, because Evelyn and Celia only really get everything they want when they have such a limited amount of time left to spend together.

Evelyn tells Harry that she wants to stop acting and move to Spain with Celia and Connor; she’s grown tired of hiding her relationship, and wants to go somewhere that nobody knows them. Harry is against it, saying he has met someone who cannot move from LA, and that they should all just stay there. They agree to discuss it later. But before they can, Evelyn and her driver come across Harry’s car wrapped around a tree. The passenger, Harry’s new lover, is already dead, and Evelyn places him in the driver’s seat to avoid the scandal of Harry, who was driving drunk, being exposed for committing vehicular manslaughter. Harry later dies in hospital from blood loss. I think this death hit me the hardest because I truly wasn’t expecting it. I went into the book knowing Celia’s fate (mostly because everyone had been talking about it for MONTHS before I read it), but Harry’s death was a complete shock to me. Of all the people I expected to die, he wasn’t one of them. Evelyn’s speech to Harry whilst he’s in a coma is so powerful, and made even more emotional by the fact that he died only an hour later. (And if you saw me crying on the underground - no you didn’t).

Let’s talk about this car crash, as morbid as that sounds. Now, I’ll freely admit that it is purely due to my own lack of observation that this plot twist was as shocking as it was. Had I been paying attention to literally anything Monique said throughout the novel, I would’ve figured out the twist as soon as Evelyn mentioned moving the passenger into the drivers seat. But no, I was truly shocked to find out that the other man in the car, Harry’s lover, was James Grant. Father of Monique Grant. But then again, perhaps the idea was to make Evelyn’s story so compelling that you forget all the things not directly related. I actually made myself late for work one day because I was so desperate to find out how the story finished that I missed my stop. If that’s not excellent writing, then what is?

Shock factor aside, Monique’s father being Harry’s lover ties the plot together well. And I mean that in a good way. It didn’t feel faked, or shoehorned in to not leave unanswered questions. The revelation felt authentic, and answered the question from the very beginning of the novel of why Evelyn chose Monique to write her book. I love a cyclical plot, so I found this to be an excellent full circle moment.

Themes

LGBT+

I know I’ve talked plenty about the characters sexualities already but I’m about to do it again. The main portion of this novel is set in the latter half of the 20th century which was a particularly difficult time for LGBT+ people.

Evelyn mentions the Stonewall Riots (beginning June 28th 1969 for anyone that doesn’t know) and how it effects them. This takes place during the section of the novel where Evelyn is with Celia and Harry is with John, and Evelyn mentions how Celia viewed the riots as the beginning of something, how they might have the chance to be themselves in public, now that gay people had announced themselves in such a way. Evelyn also reflects that this was the first time she truly realised there were other people like her, like all four of them, out there. Unfortunately, Celia doesn’t get her wish. It is pointed out, rightfully so in my opinion, that if the four of them joined the riots then everything would turn to speculating if they’re gay, rather than LGBT+ rights. It’s different today, of course, celebrities show their support for the LGBT+ community all the time, it doesn’t mean they’re gay. But back then, three Hollywood stars and a superstar quarterback joining riots for gay rights? It would’ve turned into a spectacle.

However, they do all agree that the best thing they can do is donate money. Evelyn says that they all began privately funding the fight for LGBT+ rights that day, and that she’s continued ever since. I liked this decision as it is real activism, and not performative (one of my biggest pet peeves is rich celebs sharing gofundmes but only donating a minimal amount of money).

Later in the novel, Evelyn mentions the AIDS crisis and specifically calls out Reagan, who was president at the time, for ignoring it. I can’t claim to know a lot about the ins and outs of the AIDS crisis in the US (because I’m British) but I imagine it was about as awful as it was here (Alexa, play Ding Dong the Witch is Dead). But Evelyn talks about how she’s spent years watching Harry lose friends and lovers to the disease, worrying that he would get sick, and being unable to help his friends. Celia mentions Rock Hudson, who was one of the first celebrities to announce his AIDS diagnosis back in July 1985. He didn’t come out as gay, but at the time, announcing you had AIDS was the same as announcing you were gay.

I’ve mentioned the positive LGBT+ representation, and it’s only fair that I mention the negative. Due to the time period this novel is set in, biphobia and lesbophobia are rampant throughout the story. And yes, they are different things.

There are several instances where Celia invalidates Evelyn’s love for men, and Evelyn even says herself that Celia saw her as a straight woman when she was with a man but a lesbian when she was with Celia. Husband No.6 also invalidates Evelyn’s sexuality, telling her she must be a lesbian because she loves a woman. Monique also makes this mistake early on in the story, calling Evelyn a gay woman when she’s told about Celia, forgetting the moments beforehand when Evelyn told her about how much she loved Husband No.2.

The most obvious form of lesbophobia comes when Evelyn insinuates that she is superior to Celia because she is capable of loving a man whereas Celia, being a lesbian, cannot. Of course, being able to love a man doesn’t make you superior to someone who can’t but that doesn’t change the fact that Evelyn believes it to be true at the time. However, as they both grow as people over the course of the story, this prejudice is left behind them and they embrace each other for who they are.

Love, Sex, and Scandal

One thing we see continuously is Evelyn using her body to help her get what she wants. She uses it at the age of 14 to seduce Husband No.1 because she knows he can get her out of Hell’s Kitchen. And then, once she makes it to Hollywood, she uses her body to persuade people into giving her the parts she wants. And honestly? Good for her. Evelyn took what she had and made something more because of it. Evelyn freely admits to Monique that she used her body to get what she wanted, and that it caused the downfall of her relationship with Celia because she cared just as much about being famous as she did about Celia. I like that Evelyn points this out because it shows her shortcomings as a character. Yes, she was madly in love with Celia and would probably do anything for her, but Evelyn was also selfish, and her desire to prove that she could achieve anything she set her mind to compromised her relationship with Celia more than once.

Evelyn appears topless in a French film and, while it does what Evelyn intended and catapults her into international stardom, the consequences cause an even bigger scandal and bring an end to her relationship with Celia. You might think that’s a bit of. stretch, but if Evelyn hadn’t done the French film, she would never have married Husband No.3 and Celia wouldn’t have left.

Evelyn talks a lot about the difference between sex and intimacy during the course of the novel. She says that intimacy is about truth and trust rather than sex meaning, if we go by that logic, then Harry and Celia are the two most intimate relationships Evelyn has ever had. Evelyn discusses this issue multiple times. I think it’s important to her that Monique, and later the rest of the world, know Evelyn’s opinion on both things as she spent quite a bit of time using sex to get what she wanted, and it’s imperative to her that everyone knows that she never felt anything; all of feelings and intimacy were reserved for Celia.

Ironically enough, we never get a public reaction to the biggest scandal of the book; the fact that Evelyn Hugo was in love with Celia St James. The final pages of the novel are taken up by a newspaper clipping announcing Evelyn’s death and then an extract of her biography, written by Monique, announcing that she was in love with Celia. Of course, by the end of the novel, we know so much about the ins and outs of Evelyn and Celia’s relationship that it no longer feels even remotely scandalous, and we forget that it is actually still a secret. What would the public reaction be like? Would everyone be truly scandalised, wondering how a woman who had been married to seven different men could possibly have spent most of her life loving one woman? Or would there be a collective thought of ‘I knew it’ and twitter threads chronicling their lives together, trying to prove that the love between them was obvious. We’ll never know, I suppose, but I like how the novel ends, with an iconic quote from Evelyn:

“They are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo. And anyway, I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife.”

Final Thoughts

Excellent. This book is some top-notch storytelling. I was captivated by the characters and the plot from start to finish, and literally couldn’t put it down. I would 10/10 definitely recommend this to anyone who loves this kind of story, or is just looking for something new to try; I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Am I looking forward to the film? Meh. It should be a tv show. An episode or two for each husband is the perfect set up for this kind of plot, and I don’t know how they’re planning on fitting everything into a film, but we’ll see.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid is available to buy from any popular bookseller.