If you liked
Books like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo broke out because Taylor Jenkins Reid did something most historical fiction will not do: she wrote a glamorous, queer, complicated woman and let her be unrepentant about all of it. The framing device (the elderly star, the young journalist, the slow reveal) gives the book momentum, but the heart of it is character. If you loved the long-life-told-backward structure, the old-Hollywood texture, and the emotional payoff in the last fifty pages, these are the read-alikes we keep handing to friends.
The shortlist
What to read next
Pachinkoby Min Jin Lee
“Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 2017 review. Four generations of a Korean family in twentieth-century Japan, beginning with Sunja's pregnancy by a married Korean gangster in 1933 Busan. The Apple TV+ adaptation source and one of the canonical contemporary Korean-American literary novels.”
The Goldfinchby Donna Tartt
“The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 2013 review. Theo Decker, thirteen, survives a Metropolitan Museum bombing that kills his mother and ends up with a stolen painting that defines the next decade of his life. Pulitzer Prize 2014.”
Normal Peopleby Sally Rooney
“Normal People by Sally Rooney 2018 review. Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small Sligo town, attend Trinity College Dublin together, and orbit each other across four years of intermittent intimacy. The literary-fiction novel that defined the Rooney moment.”
Klara and the Sunby Kazuo Ishiguro
“Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.”
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Storeby James McBride
“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride 2023 review. A 1972 skeleton found at the bottom of a Pottstown, Pennsylvania well sends the novel back to a 1930s neighborhood where Black, Jewish, and immigrant families lived alongside each other. The most important American novel of 2023.”
Jamesby Percival Everett
“James by Percival Everett 2024 review. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim, in his own voice. The most important American novel of 2024 and the right Everett entry point.”
FAQ
Common questions about The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo read-alikes
- Which of these is the closest tonal match?
- Pachinko. Both books span a long, full life, both circle one decision (or one secret) for hundreds of pages, and both pay it off emotionally without sentimentality. If the structural pleasure of Evelyn Hugo was what hooked you, Pachinko is the next read.
- I want another book with a complicated woman at the center.
- Normal People (Marianne is exactly this kind of figure at a different life stage) and Klara and the Sun (the female interiority is here, just told from an AI narrator looking at a girl). The Goldfinch is the male version but the emotional logic is identical.
- Are any of these queer the way Evelyn Hugo is queer?
- Normal People is, briefly. The catalog is light on explicitly queer literary fiction at this scale — we are working on it. For now, if a queer center is non-negotiable, A Little Life and The Song of Achilles are the obvious next reads.
- What about other Taylor Jenkins Reid books?
- Daisy Jones and the Six is the obvious follow-up and reads in about three days. Malibu Rising is the third in the Hugo-verse and is the lightest of the three. None of those are reviewed here yet, but they should be on your library list next.
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