7 Books Like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo to Add to Your 2026 Reading List

If Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo left us wanting more stories about complicated women, hidden identities, glamorous lives, forbidden love, and secrets that refuse to stay buried, we are definitely not alone.

Below is a list of 7 books like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo to add to your 2026 reading list.

1. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

The Great Believers is a deeply emotional novel about friendship, love, loss, memory, community, and LGBTQ+ history. The story moves between Chicago during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and Paris decades later, connecting personal relationships with historical events. Unlike The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the story is not centered on celebrity or Hollywood, but it shares the same interest in the lives people are forced to hide or defend. The characters' relationships are shaped by fear, prejudice, grief, and extraordinary social change. For readers who were particularly moved by Evelyn's LGBTQ+ love story and the sacrifices surrounding it, this novel offers a powerful and unforgettable experience.

2. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising combines celebrity, family drama, secrets, and complicated relationships, making it another excellent choice for Evelyn Hugo fans. The story follows four famous siblings preparing for a legendary Malibu party in 1983, but beneath the glamorous surface lies decades of family conflict. Each sibling carries emotional wounds connected to their famous father and complicated childhood. Like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the novel reminds us that wealth and fame cannot protect people from heartbreak. Taylor Jenkins Reid creates characters who feel deeply human despite their extraordinary circumstances. If we enjoyed the combination of glamorous settings and emotionally messy relationships, Malibu Rising is essential reading.

3. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is an atmospheric story about family secrets, memory, women's lives, and the consequences of being considered inconvenient. Iris Lockhart is stunned when she discovers that she has a great-aunt named Esme, a woman who has spent decades inside a psychiatric institution. As Iris investigates her family's history, she discovers truths that previous generations deliberately concealed. Like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the novel reveals how society and families can pressure women into hiding important parts of themselves. Its mystery gradually deepens as the past emerges, making it particularly appealing to readers who love hidden histories, complicated female characters, and shocking revelations.

4. The Latecomers by Helen Klein Ross

The Latecomers explores friendship, family, identity, secrets, and the complicated paths people take throughout their lives. Rather than presenting characters as simple heroes or villains, the novel focuses on the decisions, relationships, and circumstances that shape them over time. This makes it appealing to readers who enjoyed the emotional complexity of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Like Evelyn, its characters demonstrate that a person's public identity rarely tells the complete story. Their histories influence the relationships they create and the choices they make years later. For readers who prefer thoughtful character studies about imperfect people and the secrets they carry, The Latecomers offers a compelling addition to a 2026 reading list.

5. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Vanishing Half explores identity, family, race, reinvention, and the consequences of living behind a carefully constructed identity. Twin sisters Desiree and Stella Vignes take dramatically different paths after leaving their small Southern hometown. One returns home, while the other secretly builds an entirely different life. Like Evelyn Hugo, Stella demonstrates how reinventing ourselves can offer freedom while also creating painful consequences. Brit Bennett creates a thoughtful story about what happens when the person we become conflicts with the person we once were. For readers who loved the themes of secrecy, identity, ambition, and reinvention in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, this novel offers an especially powerful and thought-provoking experience.

6. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue takes themes of love, identity, memory, and legacy and transforms them into an atmospheric fantasy. Addie makes a supernatural bargain that grants her freedom but causes everyone she meets to forget her. She spends centuries searching for ways to leave a permanent mark on a world that constantly erases her. Like Evelyn Hugo, Addie is deeply concerned with the question of what remains after a person's life has passed. The novel is beautifully written and emotionally expansive, making it a wonderful choice for readers who enjoyed Evelyn's desire to control her own story. It offers a more fantastical but equally moving exploration of identity and remembrance.

7. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

The Immortalists begins with four siblings who receive predictions about the dates of their deaths. This unusual knowledge dramatically changes how each sibling approaches relationships, careers, love, and risk. The novel examines family, mortality, fate, ambition, regret, and the meaning of a fulfilling life. Like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, it encourages us to look beneath conventional ideas of success and ask whether the life we build actually reflects what matters to us. Each sibling responds differently to the possibility of knowing their future, creating a fascinating exploration of choice and consequence. Readers who enjoy emotional stories spanning decades will find plenty to appreciate here.

Conclusion

The magic of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo isn't simply its Hollywood setting or its succession of dramatic relationships. It is the feeling that every person has a story far more complicated than the version the world sees.