Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

This was such a beautiful look into how much life can change in the span of just a few years, and how complex human relationships are. That love comes in so many shapes and sizes and your entire life can be turned around by just one decision is so beautifully highlighted here. It’s well-loved for a reason!

Content Warnings

newbiejpeg's review

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emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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kaleidoscopemoon's review

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dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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aclifshitz's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

albeit a somewhat predictable ending this book still manages to pull at your heart strings the entire way through. it has wonderful representation and references to history especially LGBTQ history. Evelyn is a very complicated character but she is beautifully written in a way that makes her both lovable and dislikable at the same time. overall it is a beautiful book with beautiful lessons. i wish we had gotten to dive more into her childhood and not center the book around only her husband but after all isn’t that the point.

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tikidoo's review

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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joely25's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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k0smyc_lsr's review

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adventurous challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I’m just sensitive, don’t mind me

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nyquillll's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

A 6-star read, if I'm being honest. I cried (a lot), laughed, audibly gasped, had to close the book at some parts - this was just everything.

I don't know if I can fully encapsulate how this book changed my brain chemistry in the span of 7 hours which I binged the entire thing. All I know is it feels like the person I was before I read this book is different, even if marginally so, from the person I am after having read it.

Usually I start with the things I liked, but this time I'll briefly mention the things that challenged me with the book:

I think maybe I would have appreciated knowing that the book was going to include details on
sexual assault, sexual harassment, adult-minor relationships, age-gap relationships, and domestic abuse
. As they are darker themes, I think some people might need warning before diving into the story. That said, I think the level of detail that's included in the book, speaking from the experience of someone who has not experienced those themes personally, did not feel grossly explicit or exploitative. It was always looped back into the plot of Evelyn Hugo sharing her life story.

(I think that's all I can think of, actually)

Things I absolutely loved about the book:

My god, what can I say. First, the writing style was stunningly captivating - I was hooked from the first page and when the story got going, it was off to a quick start. In fact, I was 70% in to the book and it felt like I could've been at 40% and I would've been content with still having much more to go.
The pacing of the book and how it's sectioned off, each dedicated to a different husband-era, was masterful. Nothing felt like it dragged on too long or too short. The details revealed in each section kept me wanting for more, eager to hear how the story unfolded. And the breaks in the story that allowed us to learn a little bit about Monique, the journalist, were intentionally done as a foil and mirror to Evelyn's life.
THE AMOUNT OF HARD, CHALLENGING, IMPORTANT conversations that were touched on in this book - and not only touched on, but lived. My god. Off the top of my head: the lengths people go to in order to escape their current situation, how women are conditioned from a young age to view our worth and value through the male gaze, how love comes in many forms - how it can leave and come back - how it can break us so minutely and make us feel so whole all at once, the fierce love of a parent for their child, the allure of fame and the exploitative nature of Hollywood, the temptation of "more" even after becoming richer beyond your wildest dreams,
dying with dignity
, the bravery and courage it takes in society (especially back in the 1930s-80s when most of the book takes place) to embrace the fear of being your true self unabashedly, the selfishness that comes with loving someone, love that's shared with the world and love that's coveted between a small circle of loved ones, the absolute pain and despair of losing people you deeply loved,
the inner turmoil of trying to navigate your own sexuality without having external expectations or definitions imposed on you
, what a privilege it is to love openly and publicly, the life of a female movie star whose fame was largely attributed to her looks - the process of aging, the sexualization and objectification of women, making the conscious decision to use your body and sex appeal for your own gain rather than have it used against you, the difference between forgiveness and absolution, how divorce can be an ending with multiple interpretations, how women are constantly doomed to being defined and remembered by their relationships with men, sacrificing pieces of your identity and heritage in order to pursue a better life,
the joy of being queer and finding spaces where it's safe to be queer and happy - which should not be a revolutionary act, though it is
, do all ends justify the means?, and if the whole world misunderstood you, would that be fine if one person did?
The LGBTQIA+ representation - the
bisexual
representation, the
(at first) innocence and adoration of women exploring each other as lovers
, the tension of not wanting to hide but fearing what could be lost if the truth were known, the heaviness of youth and big decisions, the small, quiet moments of confessions of love and "this made me think of you, I am always thinking of you," the navigation of boundaries even with an all-consuming love, the carefully chosen family huddling together to
raise a child spoiled with love
, the agony of losing someone not because you didn't love them enough but because you love them too much.
I cried multiple times in this book and let me say, all those tears were deserved. I feel broken and put back together all at once. I think this book accomplished what it set out to accomplish: to highlight the commodification and idolization of celebrities to the point of combustion, the fact that humans aren't meant to be wholly good or wholly bad but our actions each day might teeter toward one side or the other, that in the face of death perhaps the one kindness we can give is the truth, lest it die with us as well

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Sexism, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Car accident, Death, Cancer, and Terminal illness

Minor: Child abuse and Abortion

Quotes I highlighted:

"I have long operated under the idea that civility is subservience."

"Make them pay you what they would pay a white man."

"He'd convinced himself that his wanting me was my fault."

"It just goes to show that if you tell a woman her only skill is to be desirable, she will believe you."

"Sometimes I think the difference between an actress and a star is that the star feels comfortable being the very thing the world wants her to be."

"Naively, I had thought I was done pretending to like the attention of every man I came across."

"Be wary of men with something to prove."

"But the truth is, praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even."

"He told me he wanted to do work that invigorated him. He said, 'You have to do that too, Monique. When you're older. You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it feel small. OK? You promise me that?'"

"But intimacy is about truth."

"I feel like I spent my entire life loving her."

"I'm bisexual. Don't ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box, Monique. Don't do that."

"Because she wants to be seen exactly as she truly is, with all the nuance and shades of gray. The same way I have wanted to be seen."

"If you are heartbroken right now, then I feel for you deeply...That I have the utmost respect for. That's the sort of thing that can split a person in two. But I wasn't heartbroken when Don left me. I simply felt like my marriage had failed. And those are very different things."

"If you are intolerable, let me be the one to tolerate you..."

"'It's not wrong,' Celia said. 'It shouldn't be wrong, to love you. How can it be wrong?'"

"It is two A.M., and you are tired. You miss the love of your life."

"You have worked so hard for a life so grand. And now all you want are the smallest freedoms. The daily peace of loving plainly."

"I guess we aren't as right for each other as we thought..."

"You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, 'It's OK, you can fall down now. I'll catch you.'"

"She's gone now...The love of my life is gone, and I can't just call her and say I'm sorry and have her come back. She's gone forever."

"And now that I don't have her, and I have more money than I could ever use in this lifetime, and my name is cemented in Hollywood history, and I know how hollow it is, I am kicking myself for every single second I chose it over loving her proudly."

"I missed the woman who should have been my wife."

"You, of all people, should know that you can't tell a singly thing about a person's true character if you both want the same thing."

"OK...You're right. We went into this together, we'll leave it together."

"Debatable." "So debate it with me."

"I started crying when I realized those men and women were willing to fight for a dream I had never even allowed myself to envision. A world where we could be ourselves, without fear and without shame. They were braver and more hopeful than I was. There were simply no other words for it."

"I knew it was imperative that I hide, and yet I did not believe I should have to. But accepting that something is true isn't the same as thinking that it is just."

"I wonder where I got off, throwing money around so casually, as if the fact that it came easily to me meant I had no responsibility to value it."

"It's always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly."

"What am I supposed to do with that?...That you're sorry? What is that supposed to mean to me?"

"Simple family picnic. Just the five of us."

"All I've ever wanted was for you to be truly mine. But you've never been mine."

"Evelyn, you are not capable of giving it up. And you never will be. And it will be the tragedy of my life that I cannot love you enough to make you mine. That you cannot be loved enough to be anyone's."

"...what's more, I made her complicit in it. I put her in a position to continually have to approve of my choices at her own expense."

"And there's one other person out there, whom I think of every day."

"Some marriages aren't really that great. Some loves aren't all-encompassing."

"Sometimes divorce isn't an earth-shattering loss. Sometimes it's just two people waking up out of a fog."

"But we will still be as we've always been. A family."

"It took me about four months to realize that Max had no intention of even trying to love me, that he was only capable of loving the idea of me."

"And to anyone tempted to kiss the TV tonight, please don't chip your tooth."

"All my love, Edward, Evelyn"

"My Dearest Celia, Do you think lovers can ever be friends?"

"Losing me again. I don't want to let you love me if you don't think you can lose me again. One last time."

"I'd watched him cry his eyes red out of fear that he'd get sick, for not knowing how to help the people he loved.""

"And that you have to be willing to deny your heritage, to commodify your body, to lie to good people, to sacrifice who you love in the name of what people will think, and to choose the false version..."

"...of yourself time and time again, until you forget who you started out as or why you started doing it to begin with."

"I knew he was always doing the very best he could with the pain he felt at any given moment. And this, however tragic, had been the best he could do."

"I want you to stay, Harry. We need you. Me and Connor...But if you have to go, then go. Go if it hurts. Go if it's time. Just go knowing you were loved, that I will never forget you, that you will live in everything Connor and I do. Go knowing I love you purely, Harry, that you were making an amazing father. Go knowing I told you all my secrets. Because you were my best friend."

"She's such a spectacular woman - by which I mean she, herself, is a spectacle. But she's also deeply, deeply human."

"Six years later, after Celia and I had spent more than a decade together on the beaches of Spain, after Connor had graduated from college and taken a job on Wall Street, after the world had all but forgotten about Little Women and Boute-en-Train and Celia's three Oscars, Cecilia Jamison died of respiratory failure."

"Even long past my prime, people were still easily distracted from seeing how I felt about Celia St. James. But this time was different. Because I wasn't hiding anything."

"Until your daughter dies."

"I knew what it was like to realize that the one you love would leave this earth well before you. But nothing could prepare me for the pain of watching my child suffer."

"I kissed her forehead like she was my baby again, because she was forever my baby."

"I told her every single day that her life had been the world's greatest gift to me, that I believed I was put on earth not to make movies or wear emerald-green gowns and wave at crowds but to be her mother."

"She knew she was loved. She knew that she had changed my life, that she had changed the world."

"When you write the ending, Monique, tell everyone that it is the people I miss. Tell everyone that I got it wrong. That I chose the wrong things most of the time...When you write the ending, Monique, make sure the reader understands that all I was ever really looking for was family. Make sure it's clear that I found it. Make sure they know that I am heartbroken without it."

"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."

"That he loved you. Like that. He was willing to turn down romantic love in order to stand by your side."

"...it occurs to me that it is the very thing that made her that will be the thing to finally take her down."

"Evelyn was never going to let the thing that made her be the thing to destroy her. She was never going to let anything, even a part of her body, have that sort of power."

"I hate Evelyn, but I think I like her very much."

"Evelyn trusts me with her story. Evelyn trusts me with her death."

"It feels as if some old version of me is leaking out, letting go, saying good-bye in the effort of making room for a new me. One that is stronger and somehow both more cynical about people and also more optimistic about my place in the world."

"I don't know if I would say passionate. We just really liked each other. It was almost as if when I met him, I met this other side of myself. Someone who understood me and made me feel safe."

"We just knew we could be happy together. We knew we could raise a child."

"But I was really happy with your father. I really loved having someone look out for me, having someone to look out for. Having someone to share my days with."

"I don't know what I'm going to do. I just know that I will be guided by what I believe to be best for my mother."

"Knowing to look for it, knowing there are all different types of great loves out there, is enough for me for now."

"She wanted you to know this because loving Celia St. James was perhaps her greatest political act."

"...they are just husbands. I am Evelyn Hugo. And anyway, I think once people know the truth, they will be much more interested in my wife."

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