Character Review the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Seven Valuable Life Lessons from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Not your typical scandal story
Author's note: If you haven't read the book and don't want spoilers, please bookmark this article then come up back once you're done!
After finally rekindling my love for reading, I've just finished Taylor Jenkins-Reid'due south 'The 7 Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. And wow, what a ride. The book explores the life of fictional actress Evelyn Hugo and her rise to fame from Hell'southward Kitchen to Hollywood. I say fictional, but her character felt and so existent the book left me wanting to watch her movies that I all the same wish really existed.
I received the novel via a volume subscription I had taken out in a bid to read more. Yes, it worked for anyone interested, and this is the subscription service I utilise. It'due south like receiving a care package from a very sophisticated, well-read friend.
On the surface, it looks like your average tale of old Hollywood scandal. What the book is really about, runs much deeper. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo explores themes of loyalty, betrayal, loss, sacrifice, and tragedy.
Despite what the title may advise, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo doesn't actually focus so much on the husbands, simply rather Evelyn herself, where nosotros quickly larn that there is much more to her than meets the eye.
On finishing the volume, I was left with that empty feeling y'all get subsequently condign so absorbed in the book you lot're reading. I wanted to stay in Evelyn'southward world just a little scrap longer. It features beautiful symbolism, and throughout the pages, Evelyn teaches the reader valuable lessons on honey, life, and loss.
i. "When you're given an opportunity to modify your life, be gear up to do any it takes to make it happen. The discussion doesn't give things, you take things."
I, like many others, initially made the mistake of pinning the volume down as another old Hollywood scandal story. Oh, how I was wrong. While the volume beginning appears to go down this route, it quickly swerves into a very unlike direction. The book tackles much deeper social and political problems including race, sexism, homophobia, and the toxicity of the media.
Equally for Evelyn Hugo? We first hear of her through the lens of the book's protagonist, relatively unknown mag reporter, Monique Grant. She describes Evelyn as your typical fifties Hollywood bombshell, with pivot-straight night eyebrows, bleach blonde pilus, high cheekbones, and e'er-so-swollen lips.
Monique notes that her blonde hair can't be natural because her tanned complexion, but that was an understatement.
Evelyn Hugo was actually born Evelyn Elena Herrera, and is of Cuban descent. After clawing her style from Hell's Kitchen and scoring her big intermission in Hollywood, Evelyn is forced to forfeit her very identity.
Her naturally dark locks were bleached blonde, and Herrera became Hugo. She is a woman in a human'due south earth. If she wanted to exist famous, she had to forfeit her very identity to satisfy the male gaze. They knocked downwardly her heritage correct downwards to the roots of her family. Her abusive father became a saint, and the last chip of Spanish in her dialect was "corrected" with voice coaching.
Despite all of this, Evelyn plays no victim. She is a woman who knows her worth. When the media objectify her, she uses information technology to her reward to climb the Hollywood ladder. She takes an unfair situation and makes it work in her favor. She steps on others to get what she wants and has no regrets for doing so. In fact, she is adamant that Monique doesn't write her story through rose-tinted glasses. She is finally to be seen for who she is, flaws and all.
The lesser line? You lot come first. Nobody else.
two. "People think that intimacy is most sex. Just intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can bear witness yourself to them, when you stand in forepart of them bare and their response is 'you lot're safe with me'- that'due south intimacy."
This comes later on Celia tells Evelyn, "All your secrets are safe with me."
Over the last few years, I've had my share of toxic relationships. Relationships where the sex was cracking, merely I felt similar I couldn't exist myself around them. I fifty-fifty had one long-distance beau become to bed on me rather than stay up to talk because I wasn't alone to sext. Obviously, I should accept cleaved upward with him there-and-then, just yous frequently only see the ruby flags once you lot've distanced yourself.
Sexually, our relationship was dandy. Fantastic even. But that'southward all it was. Strip away the sexual practice and we were left with two people with well-nigh nothing in common just existing together.
Sexual activity is something relatively piece of cake to obtain. It's a natural occurrence that most of united states of america as human beings crave. A 1-night stand doesn't come close to intimacy, equally I'm sure many will agree.
Real intimacy is hard to find. Someone who you can be completely yourself with, ugly parts and all. I believe that only when you find this, will you empathize what true intimacy is.
3. "I'm bisexual. Don't ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box."
Throughout the novel, Evelyn faces bisexual discrimination multiple times. Non simply does discrimination come from the men in her life — her sixth husband, Max Girard, quickly jumps to the conclusion that she is a "dyke", despite every indication that she is also attracted to men — merely besides from her own girlfriend, Celia St James, a lesbian who often dismisses or feels threatened by whatsoever man in Evelyn's orbit. Her consistent denials of Evelyn's true identity still remain relevant today.
We even run across this in the present 24-hour interval, through the lens of Monique Grant, the 21st-century reporter tasked to write Evelyn's memoir. Afterward Evelyn tells her of her budding romance with Celia St James, even afterwards she previously admitted her dearest for her commencement married man Don Adler, Monique nonetheless unwittingly jumps to conclusions.
Monique asks:
"And then this book, your biography… you're ready to come out every bit a gay adult female?"
To which Evelyn replies:
"Accept you not been listening to a unmarried thing I've told you?"
The stigma surrounding bisexuality was not only present in the fifties when homosexuality was notoriously frowned upon, simply carries through to the present twenty-four hours.
Not just are they shunned by their straight peers — to this day, Lesbian women and LGBTQ communities are frequently rejecting bisexual women as both potential friends and equally romantic partners due to stereotypes that bisexual women are untrustworthy, unreliable, incapable of monogamy, and "sleeping with the enemy.", but likewise past their homosexual peers.
Phrases such as "greedy" or "confused" will oft be tossed around in reference to bisexuality. The uncomfortable truth still remains; straight people call up bisexuals are just a pilus away from going fully gay, while gay people think they're only exploring or dabbling or going through a phase.
Sure, we've come up a long way since the fifties. But we still accept a long way to go.
iv. "Never let anyone brand y'all feel ordinary."
Afterwards Evelyn marries her 4th married man, Rex North, to drum up publicity for their upcoming movie, Anna Karenina, he tries and almost succeeds to bed Evelyn, despite their union being little more than a PR stunt.
How does he fail? This one line:
"C'monday baby, you lot know you want to."
It's hither when Evelyn realizes he must have used that tired one-time line on countless other women. It'southward here when she realizes to Rex, she's just another woman to sleep with.
Not wanting to become some other notch on his bedpost, she rejects him immediately. It's a lesson I wish I had learned years ago. I used to use sex equally an "icebreaker" of sorts. My naive way of thinking was, "If I testify this guy the best time of his life, he won't stop coming back."
I learned the hard style that many people in your life volition say annihilation to go what they want. My vagina was not some dear-pot that men will proceed flocking back to, and I should never settle for less.
5. "I'm under admittedly no obligation to brand sense to yous."
Prompted by the question, "Why would you tell only me your life story? You don't even know me. That doesn't make sense."
Evelyn is absolutely right, she, nor whatsoever of us, owes everyone anything.
This is a adult female who had to make some hard decisions to get where she wanted to be in life and wasn't atoning about it.
And why should she exist?
Despite every detriment she had against her in fifties Hollywood — Cuban, bi-sexual, and a poor background — she defied all odds and became one of the biggest names in the industry, and she was swimming upstream the whole mode.
Throughout her Hollywood career, in a male-dominated globe, fingers were constantly being pointed at her, asking questions like, "Why hasn't she had a infant yet? What is she doing incorrect?"
Evelyn owed nobody an respond. Nobody deserves anything, it'south simply a affair of who is willing to go and take it for themselves.
6. "You take to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of ane that makes it feel pocket-size."
This is a quote from Monique'south assistant-managing director begetter, and the reason she became a announcer.
Before I was a author, I was working your typical minimum wage job in hospitality. Acutely aware of how much fourth dimension we as humans typically spend at work — around a third of our lives — and of the fact that serving drinks to patrons wasn't exactly a passion of mine, I was unhappy.
I had always been aware of my talent in writing. I consistently scored A's throughout my English classes, withal afterwards school, I just kind of stopped.
Ofttimes, yous have to accomplish rock lesser before you can wing. For that, I'grand thankful for my history of low-level employment. It gave me the bulldoze I needed to rediscover my love for writing, and pursue something that fabricated my heart feel big.
After a lot of grind and a few odd clients — I had ane asking me if I could simply talk to him every mean solar day. I said I wasn't that kind of writer — I finally launched a successful freelance business concern as well as a regular job as a pop-culture writer for a US-based amusement news website.
For the first time in my life, I really felt like I had accomplished something. I followed my passion with no formal qualifications, and I got there.
7. "Heartbreak is a loss. Divorce is a slice of paper."
Following her first divorce from her calumniating married man Don, Evelyn explains, "I wasn't heartbroken when Don left me. I simply felt like my marriage had failed. And those are very different things."
Later in the book, in the present 24-hour interval, Monique comes to the realization that her pending divorce from husband David, is no bad matter.
She realizes why she felt then lamentable over the last few weeks. It wasn't because she had lost David. Rather, because she had picked the wrong guy, and entered the incorrect marriage.
I was reeling subsequently my last break-up. Despite that, it was me who ended information technology. For weeks I couldn't sympathise why. "I ended it. Why practice I experience so lamentable?"
Every twenty-four hours I was asking myself if I did the right matter. When my emotions were at their peak, I drafted out a bulletin asking him to meet. I never sent it, and I'1000 glad I didn't. At present I realize, I was but sad considering my human relationship failed. Non because I nevertheless wanted to exist with that person. And those are ii very unlike things.
(All quotes from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo past Taylor Jenkins Reid.)
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