City of Girls

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Genre: Historical Fiction (USA)
Type: Hardcover
Pages:470
Source: Local Public Library
Publisher: Riverhead
First Published: June, 4, 2019
Opening Lines: "In the summer of 1940, when I was nineteen years old and an idiot, my parents sent me to live with my Aunt Peg, who owned a theatre company in New York City."

Book Description from GoodReads:  Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves-and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time, she muses. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is. Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

My Rating: 3 stars

My Review: City of Girls follows the long life of a woman named Vivian Morris. Now an old woman, Vivian regales readers with the story of her life, beginning when she was a nineteen-year-old girl who was shipped off to live with her aunt who owned a dilapidated theatre in 1940's New York City. It's a strong premise and I was immediately taken by the writing, which was atmospheric, funny and charming (I also enjoyed the sass of this old broad).

Vivian is a character who has led an interesting life that didn't follow the usual pathways of young women in 1940's New York. I loved that she does not give one hot damn what people think about her. The early parts of the story devote a lot of page time to describing her active social life, which is filled with lots of drinking, a strong preoccupation with Vivian's sex life and … sewing.

But I found Vivian to be a hard woman to like. She was the perpetually immature, spoiled rich girl who didn't have a lot of depth to her. I think including points of view from Aunt Peg and the English actress Edna Parker Watson would have added some oomph to a story line that seemed to chip away at my interest the longer I kept at it.

Much of my waning interest has to do with the odd pacing. There are loooong sections which seem to go on for-ev-er but then large chunks of time (I'm talking decades) would be glossed over. This change from her earlier life to her later life was jarringly abrupt and unfortunately, the ending was rushed and lackluster. This left me feeling at odds: I enjoyed the feminist aspect and the atmosphere, but I was a little miffed that I didn't get enough out of the book, yet I was impressed that I got through this 470 page tome. My feelings were all over the place.

My big takeaways from this book are the descriptions of the era and how Gilbert catapults her readers into 1940's NYC with its theatres, clothing and atmosphere. The City of Girls is a story about one girl and is filled with scandal, love, glamour and friendship but its execution left me feeling like I wanted more depth to the story and characters.