The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid
It has been a long time since I 'binge read' an English novel. And with this novel, I read it on the busy and packed MRT while going home from work; I immersed myself with the rollercoaster life of Evelyn Hugo while I was drying my hair after shower; I ignored the fact I need to wake up early for work the next day and stayed an all-nighter to understand how complex and fascinating Evelyn Hugo is as a fictional character. Really appreciate my friend who recommended me this novel to me 😄
In short, this novel is captivating. With the main focus on Evelyn Hugo's biography and the divorced life of Monique Grant (the writer), Reid created a vivid tapestry of characters and settings that linger in my mind. The novel started off with Monique being chosen by Evelyn Hugo to feature herself on Vivant, her company in which I found her superior kinda annoying throughout the novel. Frankly speaking, I could not understand why Monique is so shocked when she got summoned, but after associating Evelyn Hugo with in-real-life famous Hollywood actors like Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Cruise, I think the feeling of honoured and ecstatic is relatable.
Evelyn's image is strong, even when she was slowly revealing her story started off as an abused kid, who lost her mom at young age and escaped from her dad from the Hell's Kitchen. Her first marriage with Ernie Diaz was a tool, a stepping stone, for her to enter the Hollywood world and throw everything behind. She used her body, merely as a tool again, to get the opportunity to be starred in a movie. The part where she was being styled and transformed from Evelyn Elena Herrera to Eveyln Hugo, her hair was dyed to the iconic blonde and she was forced to slim down to fit the standard image of a female star. Although it was just one line of having to swap some meals to cabbage soup for her to lose 8 pounds of weight, I felt strongly on how societal expectations always enforce on the 'necessary sacrifices', and how insignificant the sacrfice is for Evelyn throughout her journey in Hollywood. As I am a fan of Kpop, news about how Korean stars suffering from the weight loss process is a huge thing, yet in Evelyn's story, it was negligible.
Her second marriage with Don Adler once again brought Evelyn her ambitioned life, at least at the start. Don is charismatic, he is influential; he brought her fame and wealth; he also brought her bruises hidden underneath the thick makeup powder on her face. The public and newspapers viewed their marriage as a typical perfect Hollywood dream; yet Evelyn was scolded in the early morning as she refused to make Don's his breakfast. Don is toxic, he is dangerous; the audacity to hit his wife and apologize afterwards is infuriating. My heart ached when Evelyn tried so hard to pull herself together after the first hit by Don. The violence in me revealed itself when Harry Cameron, Evelyn's best friend, said that he's gonna kill Don after he found out the bruise. And when Evelyn got divorced, though for Don's own benefits, I still felt like it's a good riddance. Outside of the fictional story, I could imagine how many women or men are still suffering from the toxic relationship but could not raise their voice out; either because of the threats, or financial dependency, or merely treating as a norm. Awareness ought to be raised regarding this issue despite how naive and powerless I am regarding social problems.
What brought the smile on my face is when Evelyn finally found Celia, who truly loves her. Although Celia was verbally brutal towards Evelyn whenever she's mad, but her time with Evelyn is comparably the sweetest and most peaceful moments in the book. In a time when same-sex relationships faced societal scrutiny, their love story is full of challenges. Celia becomes Evelyn's anchor, providing solace and support in a world that often demands conformity. This is when Evelyn thought of the idea of marrying her third husband, Mick Riva, who is an egotistical man whom Evelyn thought she could play him like a pawn to be together with Celia, in the public without any judgement and suspicion about their romanticism. It was a well play; Evelyn had a one-night-stand after Mick agreed to marry her, and Mick immediately left Evelyn after that as he saw her 'losing her beauty' during the next day. Evelyn should really had gotten an Oscar when she cried for Mick's leave. The wonderful few months that Evelyn and Celia enjoyed while the media portrayed Evelyn as a poor woman who just got divorced the third time ended as Celia found out Evelyn's pregnant. At this point, I'm still quite mad that Celia just left and cut off Evelyn like that. Yes, I know the betrayal is strong, but given that Celia knew that Evelyn did this for their relationship; given that Celia agreed Evelyn's marriage with Mick; given that Celia never asked Evelyn about what she did with Mick to get married, it is heartbreaking for me to witness the two lovers separate.
The story proceeded as Evelyn marries her fourth husband, Rex North, a Hollywood producer, to advance both of their careers. Personally, there is no romance in this marriage at all. One line from Rex North that I remebered, 'Does that mean I can sleep with all women in the world except my own wife?' (maybe it wasn't the exact line). They remained true to their ambitions and boundaries. Although there was a scene where Evelyn was shaken a bit as Rex sincerely asked whether Evelyn really doesn't want to be physically intimate with him, but eventually Evelyn denied such relationship. The control she had, to refuse Rex, has marked a step forward in terms of her attitude towards the boundaries of physical intimacy. Evelyn and Rex eventually divorced each other as a plan for Rex to pursue his true love, Joy Nathan. This scene once again showed how smart and swift Evelyn is when it comes to faking marriage problems and using media to resolve any undesirable consequences.
It was during this time when Evelyn met her true love Celia again. Evelyn, Harry, Celia and John; each came to an agreement to use marriages as a cover for the true love to blossom without being discovered by the public. As Evelyn marries Harry and Celia marries John, four of them were observed to be in together all the time as a double date, yet with no suspicion on the true nature of their relationships. This marks Evelyn's fifth marriage, and it's the longest one, as well as one of Evelyn's happiest period with Celia. It lasted long; even with Evelyn asking permission from Celia to have a baby with Harry to make their marriage seem more sincere and real to the public; even when Evelyn was busy with casting on the new movie with Don Adler, her ex-husband and abuser; Celia stayed by her side. Only when Celia found out that Evelyn acted a sex scene with Don, she exploded with rage, and left her once again. To be honest, I am still puzzled on why Evelyn decided to agree Max, the producer, to act for the sex scene, despite deep down knowing well enough that she should ask Celia for her permission and comfort her before agreeing with Max. Is it her trust towards Celia that she'll never leave her? Or is it her ambition and passion towards the movie to make it more complete? Or is it Max's truthful words in convincing her? I stopped reading for a while after the paragraph of Evelyn deciding to act the sex scene, knowing well that Evelyn and Celia will have a big, irreversible, hopeless fight again.
After Celia leaves Evelyn and John dies, both Evelyn and Harry are heartbroken and decide to divorce when Evelyn is pursued by Max Girard. Evelyn and Harry remained friends until the very end. The genuity in their friendship and platonic love for each other is another happiness I gained from this novel. He's a light to her from the very start of her Hollywood journey, who guided her through her acting life, and never betrayed her even for once. It awed me that both of them loved each other, but not romantically, and would do anything to ensure each other's happiness and success.
To me, Evelyn's sixth marriage with Max Girard is merely a way for Evelyn to escape from missing Celia. She told Harry that she desires Max and choose to marry Max. It's the true love that she is missing, and she just wants to be comforted, by literal anyone who's interested in her. Once again, she's using people around her, but the only person who can provides her the love she desires has already left her. Max is 'disappointing' for Evelyn, as he 'had no intention of even trying to love [Evelyn], that he was only capable of loving the idea of [her]'. But is Evelyn trully hurt by this? Or does this only reinforces her plan to find her true love Celia back after such this period of separation? Anyway, Evelyn left him and flew to reunite with Celia, using similar tactic of framing Max as a jealous husband who tried to spread her lesbian identity to the tabloid. And she was successful, once again.
After that, Evelyn stepped into her seventh marriage with Robert Jamison, Celia's brother, in order to form a family-like structure with Celia again. This time, it is Celia's idea; she wanted Evelyn to legally get the legacy and properties of hers when she died from emphysema; she wanted to move to Spain with Evelyn and stepped down from Hollywood. They spent the next few years together, which is truly a 'happily-ever-after' ending for the novel.
I was so focused with how Evelyn grew from a poor Cuban girl to the famous actress Evelyn Hugo, the struggles and happiness that Evelyn's been through in her seven marriages, and the romance between Evelyn and Celia, that I grew fond of Evelyn's character so much, that even though it is morally incorrect for Evelyn to frame Harry's lover, Monique's dad as a drunk driver in order to save her only best friend from being charged as a murderer for drunk driving. Evelyn is indeed correct that we can never judge someone to be entirely good or bad; it never exists in the first place.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a well-written book, in which it illustrates the complexities of human relationships and shows the strong bonds in love. As I asked ChatGPT for ten adjectives to describe Evelyn Hugo, it gave me these: engimatic, glamourous, resilient, captivating, ambitious, complex, alluring, tenacious, unapologetic, charismatic. Guess what, I agree with all of them fully.
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