The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

remember him saying, in the dark, cramped stockroom with my back against a wooden crate, “You have this power over me.” He’d convinced himself that his wanting me was my fault.

But the truth is, praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even.

Meanwhile, she was acting as if he was about to charm her dress off. All I could think was that he didn’t know about that line of freckles on her hip. I knew about them, and he didn’t.

That is the fastest way to ruin a woman’s reputation, after all—to imply that she has not adequately threaded the needle that is being sexually satisfying without ever appearing to desire sexual satisfaction.

You wonder what it must be like to be a man, to be so confident that the final say is yours.

This was our people. And here they were, revolting against the police, in the name of their right to be themselves. While I was sitting in a golden prison of my own making.

It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.

“Relationships are complex,” Evelyn says. “People are messy, and love can be ugly. I’m inclined to always err on the side of compassion.”

“She always made sure the bad was outweighed by so much good. I . . . well, I didn’t do that for her. I made it fifty-fifty. Which is about the cruelest thing you can do to someone you love, give them just enough good to make them stick through a hell of a lot of bad.

Some marriages aren’t really that great. Some loves aren’t all-encompassing. Sometimes you separate because you weren’t that good together to begin with. Sometimes divorce isn’t an earth-shattering loss. Sometimes it’s just two people waking up out of a fog.