The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

  

The Seven Husbands of 

Evelyn Hugo

I can't say for sure what drew me to this book. It's not the kind of thing I usually pick up, and I haven't read anything by Reid before. But something about it intrigued me. So I checked out the kindle sample. Just a couple chapters, I figured, because I probably wouldn't like it anyway. And I was HOOKED.
It's perfect, easy beach read material. It's not particularly deep, it does not take the genre to new levels or make you think about something new, and yet it DID feel different. Evelyn Hugo's story was so delicious and compelling that it stood out, and kept me turning pages in a desperate need to discover the stories behind her seven husbands, and the answer to the one question everyone wants to know: who was her greatest love?
The framing of the story reminded me a lot of The Thirteenth Tale. Like that book, in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a young woman - this time an ambitious journalist called Monique Grant - goes to interview an elderly woman. Unlike The Thirteenth Tale, this elderly woman happens to be one of the most famous actresses in the world.
Evelyn Hugo has lived a life in the public eye, but she is full of secrets. Only she knows what happened behind the scenes in her long career of scandals and highly-publicized heartbreaks. Just like the fictional world of the book longed to know the truth-- so did I. Reid and Evelyn's habit of giving you just enough to leave you wanting more was incredibly exciting. Throughout, we are encouraged to wonder why someone like Evelyn Hugo would specifically request a relatively-inexperienced journalist like Monique. Why Monique? What is Evelyn hiding?
The more I got to know Evelyn, the more I fell in love with her. She has made a lot of controversial decisions during her career, but she knows it and she also knows she'd probably do it all again. She's played the Hollywood game, dated famous men to further her career, and used her body to get what she wants. She has experienced the full force of the industry's sexism and, in some ways, capitalized on it. She is deeply flawed and aware of it. She has traded important aspects of her identity for more fame, more roles, more money. She was a badass Cuban woman working in an industry that didn't like women to be badass or Cuban. She manipulated and she lied. Despite everything - and because of it - I liked her.
I stayed fully engrossed in the story of Evelyn Hugo - and of Monique Grant - from the opening chapters when Evelyn demanded an interview with only Monique, through decades of Hollywood in all its shimmering ugliness, right until the ending's final reveals. I enjoyed every moment.