By Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Monique Grant is a biracial magazine writer who, out of nowhere, is selected to write a magazine profile of famous actress Evelyn Hugo. I note that Monique is not a Big Name by any means in the writer world--her most notable article is on end of life care--and her employer suggested other big names. But Evelyn herself insisted it was Monique or no one. Do they know each other? No. Did her dad (who worked in film long ago before his death) know her? Nobody knows. Is Monique adopted and secretly a relative of Evelyn's? Well, she's not adopted, anyway. Though frankly, if I were Monique, that would have been the FIRST thing I asked, are we secretly related that I don't know about....
Anyway, Evelyn is obviously an Elizabeth Taylor analogue in some respects with the number of husbands, though this takes a turn beyond that. Evelyn says she's selected Monique to be her biographer and after she's dead--which she implies is soon but won't give a date--Monique can sell the book and make a few millions or whatever. Why she's making Monique this offer--well, she won't say until the end, of course, so you can sit there and wonder if they're related for a few hundred pages. (See spoiler cut for my commentary on that one.)
Most of the book is Evelyn telling her life story, which in general she's not ashamed of, even though there's a few choices she regrets. Mostly she's just very driven, very practical, and very expedient. Most of her marriages were for practical, expedient, and/or business-related reasons, with a few for love--of very varying kinds of love. What this book really could be called is "The Seven Husbands (And One Off-And-On Secret Girlfriend) of Evelyn Hugo," because Evelyn's greatest romantic love was her Little Women costar Celia St. James. Evelyn's bi, Celia's a lesbian, and Celia has off-and-on issues with Evelyn's bisexuality and willingness to boink a dude (or in one movie, fake boink a dude) and will break up with her over it for years before getting back together again.
The book is divided per husband: husband #1 she married when she was 15 and trying to get out of Hell's Kitchen and into Hollywood. #2 was a Hollywood actor and one of the few she loved, until he started beating her. #'s 3 and 4 and 5 were more or less beard marriages/business arrangements, with the latter two husbands being much more aware of it than dumb schmuck #3. Her fifth husband and sole babydaddy was Harry Cameron, her best gay guy friend, and he and she and Celia and Celia's beard husband settle down into an adorable foursome for awhile. #6 was after the foursome breaks up and he proclaims his love for her and she's ready to be loved again--then it turns out he just loves being with "Evelyn Hugo," and #7 is Celia's brother--another business/beard arrangement. She and Celia--her one "wife" unofficially at that point--are off and on romantically, depending on how Celia deals with Evelyn being with dudes off and on to stay in the closet/keep her career. They both debate at various times coming out and ruining their careers, but end up staying in. So really, a story about seven husbands is really about gay lovin'. And I enjoyed it. I get why Evelyn made the choices she did and why overall she doesn't regret them, except for the times where Celia took offense. The love for Celia and Harry in particular is palpable with her.
Monique isn't in the book much (note to the publisher: would have appreciated some different typeface or something so we visually had a distinguisher between Monique's narration and Evelyn's) so we don't get to know her much. She's close with her mother, misses her dad, and is breaking up quietly with a husband, but doesn't really get to stand out in this story a whole lot. Definitely not a two-hander. Maybe that's not the point, though.
In the end, this resolves well and mostly about how you might figure (okay, I concur that why Evelyn chose Monique is not typical--see spoiler space), and Monique comes to terms with her brief acquaintance with a memorable figure. Four stars, I read this compulsively for a few days WHILE ALSO VERY BUSY, so that tells you something.