Starting a book club is one of the best things my friends have done (and they do many great things). I had been in a reading slump for quite a while but our first book club pick, ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid, pulled me straight out of it! I couldn’t put this book down. It’s a story about a glamorous Hollywood actress from the Golden Age who chooses a seemingly random reporter, Monique, to tell the story of her tumultuous love life. I think Evelyn Hugo may be one of the most iconic characters I have ever read about. She’s flawed and admits she has made bad decisions in life, but she owns her mistakes. It makes her character both likeable and relatable because, at the end of the day, no one is perfect.

The narrative flicks between past and present as information is fed to us and we begin to understand Evelyn more. She discusses the hardships women faced in an industry dominated by men, the identity struggle of being mixed race but living as a white woman, and how sexaulity was something people were never able to be open about. Of course, from these experiences, she also had a lot of life advice to offer Monique. So I’m going to share with you some of my favourite wise words from the fictional Hollywood royalty, Evelyn Hugo.

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Nine Quotes From Evelyn Hugo

“I’m under absolutely no obligation to make sense to you.”
You never should have to explain yourself to anyone if you don’t want to. The information about yourself that you share with other people should be entirely your choice.

“When you’re given an opportunity to change your life, be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. The word doesn’t give things, you take things.”
A reminder that most people will never have the privilege of things being handed to them. When opportunities arise, you need to be ready to take them. The world can be brutal, but you have to try and be proactive.

“Make them pay you what they would pay a white man.”
You shouldn’t be receiving less pay for the same work because of your race or gender. We should be demanding pay equality at every turn.

“I’m bisexual. Don’t ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box.”
Bisexual erasure is a common and offensive misconception that bisexual people magically become ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ depending on if they’re in a same-sex or opposite-sex relationship. When Monique asks if Evelyn’s relationship with a woman is her coming out as gay, Evelyn rightly corrects her.

“I didn’t know yet that it is ok to grovel for something you really want.”
It can sometimes be a tough thing to admit the things we really want and to fight for them. Evelyn realises this when she reflects back upon her life.

“No one is just a victim or 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 painfully unoriginal.”
The idea that no one is truly a winner or loser in life. There will be times when we succeed, and times when we fail.

“Be wary of men with something to prove.”
Without giving too much away, this specific quote is about a husband who becomes abusive towards her. He was jealous that her career was doing better than his, upset that she wouldn’t take his last name and annoyed that she wouldn’t be the stereotypical ‘housewife’.

“But of course, they got it wrong. They never did care about getting it right. The media are always going to tell whatever story they want to tell. They always have. They always will.”
Never take the media at face value, always do your own research and understand the bias surrounding it.

“Never let anyone make you feel ordinary.”
We are all extraordinary individuals who are deserving of happiness and success. No one should make us feel any less.

Rating:

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What did you think of ‘The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo’? Have you read any other Taylor Jenkins Reid books? Let me know in the comments!