Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This content may include explicit material. Reader discretion is advised. The intention is not to offend but to have a discourse. Proceed only if you are comfortable with potentially sensitive topics.

A beautiful, engrossing, scandalous tale of an old woman.  This book tells the story of Evelyn Hugo, a Hollywood celebrity and what all she goes through to rise to fame. A story of ends justifying the means, of love, of abuse, of friendship and of chosen family. All the stories printed by media, especially, caught in the act one, are intentional to take away the eyes off the public from something conspicuous.

• Knowing when you are beautiful and harnessing the power of your beauty to shape your destiny.
• People whom you once loved, who have wronged you, when they apologize, you can’t go back to being friends but you still can be “friendly”, Don Adler saying “I’d be honoured by friendly”.
• The yin-yang nature of people, “how someone can love you in way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly”.
• “I am always inclined to err on the side of compassion”. Evelyn about to meet Don after long years, and “forgiveness is different from absolution”.
• “People hated how much they loved it”, even Netflix has a scoreboard for these shows. Evelyn is talking about the final scene where they shot her character, who wants to feel pleasure, the reason why she hasn’t left her drug addict boyfriend, because she gets from him what she wants. A movie expressing raw feminine desire for the need to be feel pleasured and not just pleasure others.
• “When you denied her what she wanted, when you hurt her, she made sure you hurt, too”. Evelyn to Celia. Gee, is the character based on me : D
• “I have yet to love someone enough to sacrifice for them. I’ve yet to open my heart enough to let someone in that much.”
• “the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad”
• If you are a famous person in power, how showing support for rights of minorities might shift the focus from “the rights of minorities” to “Oo, is that famous person a minority?”, so better ways would be to provide anonymous funding, things famous people have which ordinary people don’t. (Context: People fighting for LGBTQ rights)
• “When you are rich, parts of your house don’t really feel like they are yours.” (Another reminder, yeah don’t get a big house)
• One answer to the uncertainties of multiracial people, “not half one thing, half another, but rather one whole being. Theirs, loved.” Monique looking at her family photo. Mom, Dad and her.
• “If the definition of enjoying sex means that it is pleasurable, then I’ve had a lot of sex that I didn’t enjoy. But if we’re defining it as happy to have made the trade then, well, I haven’t had much that I hated.” Just for my own pondering.

Personality wise, I related most to Celia St. James. Especially when Evelyn talks about her, about how she is idealistic and have high expectations and how the world won’t live up to those expectations. I felt Evelyn was describing me : )

My greatest takeaway from the book is, maybe, just maybe you can live a happy life with a partner with companionship and love, it might not have to be the passionate one.

Some side quests + Note to Self:

A poor person with a life full of hardships cannot afford to have high morals. (Let’s stop being disappointed when people go back on their words, ok? let’s have compassion)

Why God has to be all-knowing? Isn’t it like parenting a new-born child? Or how the scientist creates Powerpuff girls? You don’t know how to raise them, you are learning on the go. And the child may go to learn more things than the parents. So why are we not cutting god some slack, for heaven’s sake?

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce, loved the summary, gotta check out the book, following religion only out of fear and experiencing sensual pleasures, going from one extreme of a pro-follower to going against it as part of natural human need but considered a sin by society, a tale of our own contradictory existence and moral dilemmas. And art being the core liberator.

Thanks for reading,
Cheers,
Calra