The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid) - If you pick it up, read it to the end

Rating:⭐⭐

This is the story of a Bollywood heartthrob of the 1960s, her life, her lovers, her trials and her victories. Evelyn Hugo comes from an impoverished immigrant background - a mother who dies too young and an abusive father who doesn't care about her. Blessed with a face to kill for and and a body to die for, Evelyn makes her way to Hollywood, and after many struggles, finds herself on the A list. Along the way, she marries to get away from her hell hole, marries for love, marries for convenience, marries for a movie, marries to become a parent, marries for convenience yet again ......and again. That is basically the story line, but what else did I expect from a book titled The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo? Duh.

I have to admit that the story is engaging and keeps you turning the pages. The book revolves around two women. The first and chief protagonist is Evelyn Hugo - the aged Hollywood diva who wants her biography written and her truth to finally be told to the world. The second is Monique, the young writer Evelyn picks seemingly randomly and doles out a get-rich-quick ticket to her by giving her the rights to write the unfiltered no truths barred biography. We move between the past glorious years of Evelyn and her turmoils, to the present life of Monique and her current turmoils. We wonder what connects these two women (as does Monique herself trying to make sense of this windfall) but we brush this question aside to focus on the people coming into and going out from Evelyn's life. The constants in this hop on hop off journey, are Harry - business partner and confidante and Celia - her co star and her bestie. Together and separately, they go through the ups and downs of their successful, rich, glamourous lives while dealing with love, heart break, professional crises, personal loss and sundry issues. Anything more I say will give away the key part of the plot and hence I shall refrain.

The story line seems to heavily draw from the careers of two Hollywood heroines for both Evelyn and Celia. The first is the OG blonde bombshell - America's collective crush, the most desirable, the sexiest woman in the 50s and till date the epitome of beauty in Hollywood - Marilyn Monroe. Is the name Evelyn rhyming with Marilyn just a coincidence, or did Reid model Evelyn Hugo on Marilyn Monroe? The second is Elizabeth Taylor who was in Hollywood around the same years as Monroe, only a few years younger, and who got married 7 times (actually 8, but two of her marriages was with the same man). Shades of these two actresses, what they were known for (Monroe craved critical acclaim but never got it adequately and Taylor who got oodles of it), their life trajectories appear prominently in the book. 

While the writing is interesting and keeps you with the book, beyond a point, the plot loosens its grip. Evelyn drifts from one marriage to another, with different reasons and sometimes no reason at all, not reasons I remember at least. It becomes fairly predictable as the story meanders between her various dalliances. The last twist is the only one that is a surprise and largely unexpected. If you do pick this up, read it to the end for the twist.

The other book with the title having Seven Husbands is "Susanna's Seven Husbands" by Ruskin Bond That is a masterpiece in tight writing and noir and a class apart - the similarity between the two books stops at "Seven Husbands". Lets leave it at that for now.

 Amazon link for ordering: https://amzn.in/d/01ykWAs6