A review by mauricekofi
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

You will see that I said the cast of characters in this book are not diverse. And you will ask "why, Reid made sure to color every other character some shade under the sun to get that golden stamp of approval." Except that's all she did. She treated people of color like a canvas to color any shade she wanted to serve a narrative that centers Western feminist ideals at the expense of women of color.

The book is very good despite this running flaw throughout the story, and I did enjoy many elements of Reid's ability to create a compelling drama representative of the seediness in Hollywood life. The book shines in these moments, without Reid's lackluster attempts to pretend she gets people of color. The use of newspaper clippings and articles to mark when and where we are in the story was a marvelous idea, and gave the book a feeling of knowing the truth and seeing the media's twist on it. That was very good.

But I'll list why I won't rate this any higher than 2.5, and even that is higher than the 1 start I wanted to give this book after the ending Reid subjects you to at the end:

  1. As stated before, centering Western feminist ideals at the expense of women of color. Now, I'm not saying this to be some kind of "anti-woke" warrior bullshit. The points and themes that Reid portrays are inherently true and not wrong at all. If anything, I found Evelyn's character as an unashamed woman who fought to excel in a world ruled by white men to be exactly what you would expect of a woman of her time. A maverick against the machine that attempted to box her. The problem is the fact that her bullying and manipulation of the women of color in the story to make that point is inherently harmful, but alas representative of white feminism even to this day. Reid's portrayals of Monique as somehow "helpless" without the influence of Hugo is deeply upsetting in a way I can only describe as hurting my soul every time she does this. Making Monique out to be inexperienced and insecure due to her biracial identity, only to be saved by the "radical" ideas that Evelyn impacts on her does not make the narrative nuanced, it just makes it racist.
  2. And speaking of race, using POC to get that stamp of "diversity" when their race had nothing to do with the story or was actually harmful and misrepresentative of race narratives from POV of people of color. Right from the beginning, Reid makes it clear what she thinks a confident, black women would look like: an impatient woman who where's bright colors and big jewelry. How does using a stereotype caricature for your sole Black woman make you anti-racist? Someone, please let me know. And Monique, a biracial character who states explicitly "that while I look Black, I am biracial" and goes so far to explain "I remember thinking that the fact that he was white made me think he would never tell me I wasn't Black enough." These surface level takes may seem nuanced, but really just portray a character uncomfortable and unwilling to own her Black identity and would rather do nothing with it or lean closer to her "white side." And if you don't believe, the only story of discrimination that is described by Monique through Reid's writing is when her cousin said she wasn't black enough as a child. Monique's insecurities with her biracial identity is never actually resolved, but is rather used as the vehicle to explain Evelyn's struggles with defending and explaining her bisexual identity to people (look back at point 1). I don't even want to get into Grace being presented as Asian and that's all that is contributed to her character, which would've been okay if not for the harmful tropes and takes that Reid had already used in the book by then.

I'll avoid talking about her use of LGTBQIA+ characters in her story, since that's not my place to speak, although there were times where I cringed at how she portrayed them:
"We were four beards." What the actual fuck, why would you ever write that.
Additionally, her suggesting and even encouraging a lack of journalistic integrity on the part of Monique for a good portion of the book was distressing and unrealistic of ethical journalism in the field. All in all, this book was good and that's what pisses me off more at the end of the day. It's such a good book until you are rammed in the head with frankly distasteful and harmful stereotypes and tropes passed off as "nuanced narratives" in a book that ultimately could have just had white characters abound.