The book “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” is an emotional, breathtaking read. It tells the story of Evelyn Hugo finding a reporter to write her story and the truth about her multiple husbands before her death. 

Although this work is purely fictional, I found that the book makes us feel like the characters are real. Taylor Jenkins Reid, the author of this novel, portrays the characters with such growth and depth as the story progresses. They feel like real people instead of just words on a page.

I found that the book touched my heart and left me shocked in a way that was nothing short of magnificent. 

Throughout the story, there is an emphasis on Evelyn wanting to be more than where she came from, which opens up the book to a first-person point of view of a woman doing what she needed to make her dreams come true. 

I think that the story of how she married her first husband to get to Hollywood highlighted how desperate she was, as well as give the audience the reality of women selling themselves or showing off their bodies to gain a better life. 

The book truly shows a message of suffering before any success.

There were a lot of shocks in the book, especially in the ending. Not all shocks were bad. For example, the coming outs of characters.

In the book there was a noticiable amount of gay characters. It was a blessing to see, considering the time in Evelyn’s flashbacks took place in the 1960s. I loved the way that these characters, unlike many of LGBTQ characters in books, weren’t thrown in meaninglessly in the name of diversity. Instead, they added to the plot and connected to one of Evelyn’s largest conflicts in her life.

 The book does not solely focus on Evelyn all the time. It also focuses on Monique, the reporter Evelyn had hired to write for her. The relationship between Monique and Evelyn is a mixture of confusion, frustration and understanding. It’s eye-opening to see how Monique describes Evelyn and to see how it differs from the Evelyn I get to know through her life. 

I will admit, the ending was almost predictable. Jenkins Reid does a lot of foreshadowing in this. 

I noticed early on how certain things were happening or being said, and then something connected to that shows up later in the book. I’m not saying that the ending was bad, it was just hinted at to where I was able to foresee some of the details of the end that made me a bit disappointed. 

The ending, even if it was a bit predictable, was still amazing regardless. It added a final secret to this sad story of a girl selling her body to make her dreams come true, finding herself, growing up in Hollywood and then losing love.

 It felt like a punch to the stomach. It wasn’t sudden, and the way Evelyn came to describe her stories of her husbands left no way of not seeing the end happening, but this didn’t make it any easier.

Overall, I found myself reading the book more than once. It hit me the same each time. With a deep story and sad message, “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” is a book for the charts.