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A review by jasonfurman
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5.0
"No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal." So says Evelyn Hugo, a fictional movie star loosely based on some combination of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Hayworth and others, that Taylor Jenkins Reid brings to live in vivid fashion.
This is the first of Reid's quartet of novels about ultra-famous women, a set that has a similar feel of grappling with complexity, downsides, struggles, and is unified by a few characters that migrate between the books more in the form of Easter Eggs than anything else (I've read [b:Daisy Jones & The Six|40597810|Daisy Jones & The Six|Taylor Jenkins Reid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580255154l/40597810._SY75_.jpg|61127102] and [b:Malibu Rising|55404546|Malibu Rising|Taylor Jenkins Reid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1618293107l/55404546._SY75_.jpg|74581401] and at some point will read [b:Carrie Soto Is Back|60435878|Carrie Soto Is Back|Taylor Jenkins Reid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649848581l/60435878._SY75_.jpg|94816155]).
It is largely told as a chronological narrative of a poor Cuban-American growing up in Hell's Kitchen who uses a combination of her wiles, looks and skills to move to Hollywood and become a major movie star. The parts of the books are organized by her four husbands all of whom she used or used her in various ways. The story centers around one major surprise that reinterprets all of her life and marriages relative to what one would have thought from the outside.
All of this is told through a frame story of a younger woman for the magazine "Vivant" (a stand in for something like Vanity Fair) who Evelyn Hugo handpicked to tell her story to. The frame story adds authenticity, provides some crumbs from the present that enhance the mystery/retelling in the past, and itself contains a surprise--the exact nature of which was not predictable but the existence of which was foreshadowed numerous times throughout the book.
Overall I found it gripping, thought provoking, and was emotionally invested in the characters and their lives from beginning to end.
This is the first of Reid's quartet of novels about ultra-famous women, a set that has a similar feel of grappling with complexity, downsides, struggles, and is unified by a few characters that migrate between the books more in the form of Easter Eggs than anything else (I've read [b:Daisy Jones & The Six|40597810|Daisy Jones & The Six|Taylor Jenkins Reid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580255154l/40597810._SY75_.jpg|61127102] and [b:Malibu Rising|55404546|Malibu Rising|Taylor Jenkins Reid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1618293107l/55404546._SY75_.jpg|74581401] and at some point will read [b:Carrie Soto Is Back|60435878|Carrie Soto Is Back|Taylor Jenkins Reid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649848581l/60435878._SY75_.jpg|94816155]).
It is largely told as a chronological narrative of a poor Cuban-American growing up in Hell's Kitchen who uses a combination of her wiles, looks and skills to move to Hollywood and become a major movie star. The parts of the books are organized by her four husbands all of whom she used or used her in various ways. The story centers around one major surprise that reinterprets all of her life and marriages relative to what one would have thought from the outside.
All of this is told through a frame story of a younger woman for the magazine "Vivant" (a stand in for something like Vanity Fair) who Evelyn Hugo handpicked to tell her story to. The frame story adds authenticity, provides some crumbs from the present that enhance the mystery/retelling in the past, and itself contains a surprise--the exact nature of which was not predictable but the existence of which was foreshadowed numerous times throughout the book.
Overall I found it gripping, thought provoking, and was emotionally invested in the characters and their lives from beginning to end.