The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2017)

How do I even start to describe this book? 

You always hear, “do not judge a book by its cover”. But it’s hard not to, as the cover is usually the first thing you see and what draws you to the book. It should convey what the book is about and give you a sense of what to expect so you can make the decision if you should read it or not. Much like a movie trailer, it sets expectations. You would not watch a film if its trailer failed to spark your interest. For that reason, I have always been skeptical of books with overly beautiful, colorful, or eye-catching covers. They tended to have the opposite effect on me. I mistakenly assumed that such books were shallow — aimed at younger audiences, lacking depth, and offering little beyond a light romantic storyline. Don’t get me wrong, I love those books as well. I’ve read them all. But when I think of literature that provokes deep reflection, I usually think of classics — works whose covers are often understated, even forgettable.

And that was all to say, that I was completely wrong to assume that “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” would be just like one more of a cute romance for young adults. I went into the book thinking it would be a mix of “The Selection” with “The Housemaid”, and would be entertaining, but not particularly challenging. TInstead, it surprised me in a way few books have in recent years — and that is saying something, considering I have read multiple classics and Nobel Prize–winning novels.

This book explores so many themes that it is difficult to select a single central focus. My first instinct was to center the analysis on its feminist dimensions — particularly the objectification and sexualization of women. However, as I reviewed my notes, I could not summarize the book in just that theme and put aside the discussion concerning relationships and love, race and ethnicity, and even the moral complexity of truth and self-preservation. For that reason, I have chosen to divide this analysis into sections and explore the ideas that stood out to me most. Bear with me — this may be a long reflection.

Women, Love, Lust and Sex. 

“The only currency I had was my sexuality, and I used it like money. I wasn’t well educated when I got to Hollywood, I wasn’t book-smart, I wasn’t powerful, I wasn’t a trained actress. What did I have to be good at other than being beautiful? And taking pride in your beauty is a damning act. Because you allow yourself to believe that the only thing notable about yourself is something with a very short shelf life.” (Page 239) 

I think this quote showcases beautifully the essence of Evelyn’s relationship with her own beauty and herself. More importantly, this paragraph resonates with many women out there, who grow up internalizing the idea that beauty is their most valuable, and sometimes only, asset. 

Evelyn had grown up in a poor household. Her mother passed away when she was young and her dad was violent and emotionally absent. As she looked in the mirror, beauty appears to be the only thing she has working in her favor.. She was not given the opportunity of an education. She was not taught that there was more to life than beauty, fame, and money. Without much of a choice and desperate to escape her reality, she used her sex appeal to get ahead in life. 

Billy, the cashier from the five-and-dime, is the first to exploit this vulnerability. He forces himself on her, blames her for provoking his desire, and later abandons her. Evelyn is left feeling both relieved and ashamed — not because she wanted him, but because his rejection feels like a rejection of the very thing she had been taught was her worth.

Yes, it was by using her external beauty she was able to escape Hell’s Kitchen and move to Hollywood by marrying Ernie Diaz. She knew how to use sex as a tool to achieve her goals. She did not see it as an intimate act. We see how deeply she believed that her value was purely sexual when she first meets Harry. Harry was gay. He did not like women. He did not stare at her chest or desired her in any sexual way. And that bothered her. What would she offer him if he did not desire her? What was her value if she was not perceived as attractive? And this is the theme we see the most present throughout the narrative - who was Evelyn Hugo behind her looks? How did Evelyn Hugo see herself? 

We repeatedly witness Evelyn doubting her legitimacy as an actress, questioning whether her success would exist without her beauty, and fearing replacement by younger, more attractive women. Even in old age, she seems uncertain that she could ever be loved for who she truly is, without a carefully constructed persona. She often reflects on how the men she married, the fans who adored her, and the people around her never truly knew her. I would argue the only one who actually saw Evelyn by who exactly she was, without expecting anything from her or trying to fit her in a mold, was Harry. Not even Celia accepted her completely. 

And of course, we are talking here about Hollywood, which I assume to be a place that is more focused on appearances than any other. But her reality is still applicable to many women regardless of the time and place. It’s funny how you can be an accomplished independent woman, who is intelligent, funny, brave, engaged, and all the amazing things that society would venerate in a man, but at the end of the day, you always feel like your value boils down to sexual desirability. Because that is who Evelyn was. She was a powerful, energetic, intelligent woman - who knew what she wanted and fought to get it. 

So the question that has remained in my mind throughout the book was - is it a mistake for women to use their beauty and sex appeal to get ahead? The answer, I believe, is no. The mistake is to believe that is our only value. Evelyn’s tragedy is not that she used her beauty to survive, but that she was never taught to see herself beyond it. Even when she gained power, fame, and control, her sense of worth remained conditional — dependent on desire, youth, and perception. And perhaps that is the most honest part of her story: not the men she married, but the identity she never fully escaped.

Culture, Ethnicity, and Identity 

Evelyn Elena Herrera was born in the United States, to parents who had emigrated from Cuba in search of a better life. Monique Grant, on the other hand, is the daughter of a Black man and a white woman. Though they come from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, they share the same underlying struggle: identity. We live in a world of categories — you are either white, Black, Latino, Asian, Arab. And once you are placed into one of these boxes, any behavior that does not fit the label is questioned, corrected, or rejected. 

For most of my life, I thought I was white. My father is white. My mother is white. And, visually, I look white. I was born in Brazil — a deeply diverse country — with Italian, Syrian, and Portuguese ancestry. That identity was never questioned until I moved to the United States at fifteen. Suddenly, I was no longer white. I was Latina. Each time I referred to myself as white, people disagreed. I couldn’t be white because I was Brazilian — and Brazilians, in their eyes, were Latinos. Until that moment, I had never really questioned what it meant to be Latina, or even Brazilian. In my mind, the only tangible difference was that I ate rice and beans with every meal. 

Over time, I began to learn what was expected of me in this new category. The first comment came while I was studying in the library. A guy approached me and said: “You don’t look Brazilian. Your skin is too light, and you don’t have enough curves.” In another instance someone asked me “aren’t you too innocent and naive to be latina?”, and “you are too quiet to be a latina.” So there I was — not considered white enough to belong among white Americans, and at the same time, not Latina enough to fit the image people had in mind. To them, a Latina had to be curvy, loud, extremely sexual, know how to dance, and be experienced. I was nerdy, quiet, and very naive. I was short and slim. I was fifteen. 

One day, I watched the music video for “Chantaje,” a reggaeton song by Colombian singers Shakira and Maluma. I became obsessed — not just with the song, but with the image it represented. I wanted to be like Shakira. After all, she was the Latina everyone imagined and admired. In my mind, if I became more like her, people would finally accept me. So I did. And I liked it.

Ten years later, I am still living in North America — and I am more Latina than I ever was in Brazil. I learned how to dance, how to be loud, how to be seductive, and how to use Latin stereotypes to my advantage. The irony is that I’m not sure I would have become any of those things had I stayed in Brazil — where I was simply considered another white person. 

In a way, Evelyn did the opposite. She knew she was Latina from the day she was born. She was a Cuban immigrant in New York City, raised in a Spanish-speaking household, marked by features that immediately set her apart. But as she entered Hollywood, she wanted to escape that identity. To Evelyn, being Cuban was tied to Hell’s Kitchen, to poverty, and to an abusive father. It represented a life she was desperate to leave behind. So she changed her name. She changed her appearance. She stopped speaking Spanish. She made herself as white as she possibly could.

We clearly see this transformation throughout the novel. For most of the book, Evelyn rarely mentions her heritage or Cuban culture at all — to the point that the reader may even forget that she is not white. It is not until she hires Luisa, a Latina woman from El Salvador, that she is confronted with the loss of her Latin identity.

Evelyn overhears Luisa speaking about her in Spanish on the phone. She interrupts, responding in Spanish and making it clear that she understands the language. Almost immediately, however, she switches back to English, taken aback by how unnatural Spanish feels to her now. Still, Evelyn is deeply hurt when Luisa apologetically tells her that she does not lookCuban. How could someone take her identity away from her so easily? She was Cuban. Her parents were Cuban. She spoke Spanish and was raised in a Cuban household.

But then she comes to a painful realization:

“I looked around my house, seeing no pictures of my family, not a single Latin American book, stray blond hairs in my hairbrush, not even a jar of cumin in my spice rack, I realized Luisa hadn’t done that to me. I had done it to me.” (p. 198)

Evelyn recognizes that she was the one who chose to erase where she came from — to distance herself from her true self. Perhaps being Cuban-American felt too complicated. Perhaps she wanted to free herself from her father. Or perhaps she believed that being Cuban meant being undesired, and therefore not valuable enough to succeed in Hollywood. But as she admits, rejecting her Cuban identity also “pulled me further away from my mother. My mother, whom this had all been at some point” (p. 198). No matter how deeply she buried that part of herself, she could never fully erase it — because doing so would mean rejecting a core part of who she was.

Toward the end of the book, we see a shift in Evelyn’s relationship with identity and acceptance. She no longer has the energy or desire to sustain the persona she created. She begins, finally, to be herself. This is most clearly reflected in the revival of her Cuban heritage. When she moves to Spain with Celia and Connor, she is forced to speak Spanish again. She admits that she was “proud of how easily it came back,” and that “years without the words had not erased many of them from my mind” (pp. 344–345).

Evelyn uses the Spanish language as a metaphor for her Latin identity. Though she initially confronts it reluctantly, she ultimately feels pride in discovering that this part of herself was still alive. As she puts it: “I loved being able to show a part of myself that I had long buried. I was happy to find that when I dug it up, that part was still there, waiting for me”(pp. 344–345).

As mentioned earlier, Monique faces a similar struggle, though rooted in a different cultural context. As the daughter of a Black father and a white mother, she always felt too Black to be white and too white to be Black. Even within her own family, parts of her identity were denied. This created a constant sense that there was something to prove.

That tension becomes especially evident when she reflects on her relationship with David:
“I remember thinking that the fact that he was white made me think he would never tell me I wasn’t Black enough. I think of Evelyn the first time she heard her maid speaking Spanish” (p. 284).

In this way, Monique becomes deeply empathetic toward Evelyn. She understands what it means to exist between categories — to have one’s identity questioned, negotiated, and invalidated.

Through the stories of these two women, I came to better understand and accept my own identity. And I hope that many readers can do the same. We do not have to fit neatly into the cultural boxes society assigns us. We are allowed to define ourselves.

I am Brazilian, and my first language is Portuguese. Yet after so many years away, I communicate more easily in English. I choose to live in North America, but Brazil will always be my home. I am too loud and warm for North America — and yet not quite chaotic enough for Brazil.

I do not think I will ever be fully one or the other. In the same way, Monique will never be simply Black or white, and Evelyn will never be completely Cuban or completely American.

And perhaps that unresolved in-between space is not a weakness — but an identity of its own.