I can’t even imagine how chronically offline you’d have to be not to have encountered The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo. This is THE #BookTok best-seller, a historical romance (of sorts) that every book girlie worth her salt is reading.
The timeline of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo stretches from the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1950s through to the present(ish) day. A former It Girl, now 79 years old, is giving her final interview, telling her whole life story from start to finish – including the dirty details of each of her seven (count ’em!) marriages. You don’t get prizes for guessing that Reid was inspired by the real-life story of Elizabeth Taylor (married eight times, to seven different men), and also Ava Gardner, who famously revealed all of her secrets to a journalist towards the end of her life.
The titular film star, Evelyn, has outlived every single one of her husbands – and her only daughter, come to that. This goes some way to explaining why she’s finally coming forward to share the truth behind the headlines: no one remains to contradict her side of the story. She’s working another angle too, though, one that Reid teases the reader with for the first two-thirds of the novel.
And who is the lucky journalist who gets to break the Evelyn Hugo story? A relative unknown, Monique Grant, who writes puff pieces for high-end magazine Vivant. Evelyn has picked her out of obscurity and offered her – and only her – full access to her life. Everyone’s baffled as to why Evelyn would want Monique (including Monique herself), but they’re willing to go along with it, knowing that the story will bring in big bucks, no matter who tells it.
The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo is split into seven parts, each named for one of the titular husbands. Each section has a descriptor that hints at Evelyn’s experience of that particular marriage: “Goddamn Don Adler”, for instance, or “Brilliant, kindhearted, tortured Harry Cameron”.
At first, Monique frames the story for the reader as seeking an answer to one big question: who was the true love of Evelyn’s life? The thing is, that becomes abundantly obvious very quickly and that “big” question is completely answered before you reach the halfway point. You’d think The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo might run out of steam after that, but Reid has the talent to keep it going, and there are many other questions and answers still to come.
I will mention here that Evelyn’s supposedly-glamorous life wasn’t all smooth sailing, and so the content of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo warrants a few trigger warnings (domestic violence, sexual abuse and exploitation, abortion, grief, terminal illness, suicide, and substance abuse – not all at the same time, thank goodness). Also, I must say I’m surprised at how little the AIDS crisis features in the narrative, given the themes of the book and the time period over which it takes place – Stonewall gets half a chapter, but AIDS rates only a passing mention.
Reid does her best to make the attention-grabbing title and the larger-than-life conceit of seven husbands feel believable for the reader, but inevitably it does start to seem – by around husband 4 or 5 – that Evelyn can see no other solution to a problem than to marry it. When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, I suppose. There’s also a bit of a glut of deaths towards the end. Of course, that’s realistic for most people as they age, but none of the doomed characters are passing peacefully in their sleep – they’re all very dramatic deaths, told in rapid succession.
Those are my only real criticisms of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo – it’s thoroughly readable, intriguing and compelling. Not only is its #BookTok popularity warranted, I think that it might actually be a force for good in society at large, as an introductory lesson to thinking critically about celebrity culture, and media literacy. Evelyn is unabashed and forthright about how she manipulates the media and her public image to her benefit, so maybe readers who might have otherwise unquestioningly accepted on-set romances and ‘irreconcilable differences’ divorces will be prompted to think more deeply about who is selling them the story and why.
The big question that remains for me is how has The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo not been adapted for the screen yet?? All of the elements are there: good looking women, lots of sex, glamour, scandal, a progressive message, and – even if it had none of those – its popularity on social media would surely guarantee bums on seats. A television adaptation was announced back in 2019, but Reid said in an interview in 2021 that the rights were no longer owned by that production company and it would be made elsewhere. In 2022, Netflix announced that they’d be adapting the novel into a feature film, but I haven’t found any concrete updates since then. So, what gives? Whenever it happens, I’ll definitely be watching.
My favourite Amazon reviews of The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo:
- “”She couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag!” “It was as clear as the nose on her face!” Oh, please, spare me. The writing was flat as a pancake.” – Andrea Elise
- “I never would have wasted 1 minute of my time if I had know this book is about lesbians and homosexuals.” – Amazon Customer
- “I couldnt finish the book.
The character was not likable.
The husbands were worse.” – S.Marinak - “Shallow, repetitive, poor writing, poor layout, poor story progression. Poor reader, condemned to pay a small fortune for this tripe.” – Book Keeper
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