The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Title: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Pages: 400 pages
Year of Publication: June 13th, 2017
Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: 

   

Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But 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 through the decades—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.

You guys, I don’t know where to start, I think I could start by saying how beautiful and powerful this book is but that would be an understatement.

When Monique was offered to do an exclusive interview for Evelyn Hugo by the Evelyn Hugo herself, she was confused but also thrilled. Evelyn Hugo has been shut herself from the media for years, so why now? Why her? What could Evelyn possibly wants from her? She’s just an amateur and unknown magazine reporter. This question is also the big mystery we’re going to find out aside from Evelyn Hugo’s secret life story and her seven husbands.

This book is told from two different PoVs and timelines, one is Monique in the present time, and the other one is Evelyn as a narrator for her own story jumping from year to year from the beginning of her career until the very end.

We get to hear Evelyn as she got out of her miserable life in Hell’s Kitchen and make her way to Hollywood, we get to hear her struggle and everything she has done to get her to the spotlight, and it’s not an easy ride. She has done so many things, good things, terrible things to get what she wanted and she did not feel sorry or ashamed about it because she knew it has to be done. Evelyn is a very brave, ambitious, and complicated woman, she has so many flaws and sometimes I even feel disgust about her, but that’s what I like about her character, she’s real, she’s so very real I almost think I read an actual autobiography. Evelyn Hugo is the most empowering woman I’ve ever known and has become one of my inspiration.

This book is about a struggle to get a better life, in which including so many issues along the way like racial discrimination, sexuality, physical and mental abuse but above all else, this book is about finding family, friendship and one true love. Despite her seven husbands, people has been wondering about who her true love might be and we’re about to find out as she tells us the true story of her life and her seven husbands which had been twisted by people and the media back in the day.

The relationship in this book is NOTHING like I have ever read before, her love stories are breaking my heart to million pieces and I was a sobbing mess the entire time, especially after the second half of the book, it’s painful to see her hiding who she really is to get ahold of the life she has been created. The friendship is the purest, the most honest relationship I ever read in a book, she and Harry are perfectly made for each other.

As much as I love the story, it’s nothing compare to my love for the writing. OH MY GOD, I’m hooked by the way Jenkins write, she wrote with great amount of rich and lush words I can’t even remember how many times I wanted to write down quotes from the book but the problem is, I can’t put the book down. So I think I’m just gonna look for the luxurious passages and quotes in Goodreads now and write them on my wall. I look for her other books immediately after I finished this and add them to my TBR, she easily become one of my favorite author and I will buy whatever piece she has written and will write from now on.

Honestly I expected nothing from this book because this is not the kind of book I usually enjoy but I was wrong, I was dead wrong. And I bet everyone who are not enjoying this type of book will eventually fall for Evelyn. This book has literally change me and my way of thinking, this masterpiece deserve every glowing stars in this world and beyond. So I beg you please, read the damn book and you’ll thank me later.

Have you ever fall so hard for the book that’s clearly not your type? What book is it? Have you read this book? What do you think? If you haven’t, do you plan to read this sometime soon?