The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Book Review

By: Olivea Herrera

Spoiler and Trigger Warning: Discussion of abuse 

What would you do to get yourself out of a bad situation? The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo answers that question. This novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid chronicles the fictional life of Evelyn Hugo, who is the most famous movie star of the 1950s in Reid’s tale. Evelyn tells her life story to Monique Grant, a hungry journalist for a magazine called Vivant, who’s looking for her big break. Monique’s big question is: why does Evelyn want her to write her memoir? As the book goes on, this question is answered tenfold.

This book is broken down into seven parts, each talking about one of the seven husbands that Evelyn has had. At the beginning, Evelyn lies to Vivant and says that she wants to give an exclusive interview about the iconic dresses she is giving away for a breast cancer charity, when she actually wants Monique to write a tell-all book about her life because she is dying. Monique is worried about being manipulative and lying to Vivant about what she is doing, but decides to take a risk and jumpstart her career by taking this opportunity. From there, Evelyn and Monique meet every day so Monique can record and take notes on the stories Evelyn tells her about her life.

As Evelyn’s life story unfolds, strong themes emerge. These themes include being bisexual in a society that shames the LGBTQ community, selfishness derived from self-preservation, abuse, and internalized racism. Evelyn originally used her sexuality to manipulate people into doing what she wanted. She never really felt lust or love until she met her first husband, Don Adler. Sadly, Don was not who he appeared to be and abused Evelyn, causing her to fall out of love with him. However, while this was going on, Evelyn developed a friendship with a co-star named Celia St. James. This friendship turned into a romance when Celia was revealed to be a lesbian.

Evelyn and Celia felt as if they had to hide their relationship in order to keep their careers and status in Hollywood. Evelyn felt more of this pressure than Celia because her goal in life was to stay a star. She grew up poor, and she and her mother shared a dream of moving to Hollywood and living the life they always wanted. When her mom died, Evelyn’s situation worsened as her father became abusive. From then on, she vowed to get herself out of that house and live out her dream not only for herself, but for her mom. Once she got into the acting business, she told herself “once I have a million dollars, I’ll be happy.” Then she said that she’d be happy once she got a mansion. This mentality stayed with her, which ultimately made her a selfish, self-centered person. During her relationship with Celia, she slept with another man to dispel any rumors that she was gay and performed a sex scene with her ex-husband in a film to revive her career. Decisions like these made her lonely and unhappy.

Celia did not care about things like these as much as Evelyn did, and she just wanted to be able to loudly love the woman she was with. The book references the Stonewall Riot, and while Celia wanted to support their community, Evelyn was too nervous to be seen there, fearing it may affect her career. Towards the end of her story, Evelyn makes sure to tell Monique that the selfish decisions she made in her life were not worth it and that she is surrounded by money and materialistic things, but alone. She said that if she were to go back in time, she would yell from the rooftops that she is in love with Celia. Evelyn knows who she is and all of the negative backlash her choices in life have caused her. But it looks as if she has learned from her mistakes by the end of her life.

Apart from hiding her queerness, Evelyn also tried to hide her race. Harry Cameron, her best friend and producer of many of her movies, said that for her to be a star, she needed to undergo a makeover to make her appear less ethnic. They dyed her hair blonde and changed her last name from Herrera to Hugo. These actions affected Evelyn’s own self-confidence as a Colombian woman. She wanted to pass as White so badly that even though she knew Spanish, she would act as if she didn’t and refused to speak it to her Hispanic maids. Evelyn knew that this was wrong and felt bad for doing so, but she felt pressured to fit into the societal beauty standards of Hollywood at the time. More than anything, Evelyn wanted to be accepted for just being herself, but she thought that wasn’t possible in the social and political climate that she lived in, so as self-preservation, she hid her queerness and race, which eventually led to her internalized racism and fear of showing pride in her sexuality.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is not really about Evelyn’s husbands at all, but a woman’s emotional journey of life living as a bisexual Colombian woman in racist, sexist, and homophobic 1950s Hollywood. This book is captivating because of the picture it paints when describing the landscape of a different era and what life was like for the rich and famous. The 1950s may have appeared to be a time of wholesome familial communion where the wife would clean and cook, the husband would go to work and provide for his family, and the kids would go to school. Yet this book shows what was lingering beneath the surface and how the golden era was actually extremely limiting to people who did not fit into the constructed social hierarchy of that period. 

Evelyn is a complex female character who chose her own destiny, was confident in being sexual, and defied the norms of women in the 1950s. It is important to show female characters such as these because it normalizes flawed women. Buying and reading this book will not only support female authors, but will also encourage more narratives from a woman’s perspective.