AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!From the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and The Signature of All Things, a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don’t have to be a good girl to be a good person.“A spellbinding novel about love, freedom, and finding your own happiness.” – PopSugar“Intimate and richly sensual, … finding your own happiness.” – PopSugar
“Intimate and richly sensual, razzle-dazzle with a hint of danger.” –USA Today
“Pairs well with a cocktail…or two.” –TheSkimm
“Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are.”
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 eighty-nine 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.
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Loved the story.
Can’t get into it!
Awesome
3.5 Rounded to 3
I was torn in how to rate this one. The writing is good and flowed easily but for about 80% of the book nothing happens. You are immersed in Vivian’s story … her promiscuity and her eventual downfall. I wasn’t really interested in what was happening to her. In the book, Edna states that Vivian is nothing special and maybe that is how her character is supposed to be portrayed. Sadly, it didn’t work for me and I was bored throughout her flashbacks.
The last quarter of the book was better and moved at a quicker pace. I enjoyed this part of the book more than the other 80%. Overall, it’s not a bad read, but not a memorable one either. With all the rave reviews, some from Bookish friends who are of a like mindset, I’m wondering if maybe it just wasn’t the time for me to read this one?
Definitely Quirky & imaginative. I enjoyed the unpredictable story with twists & turns I never would’ve expected.
Fun characters! Interesting read. Moved along at great pace!
Innovative storyline with great characters. Enjoyed this book.
Loved this book!
Different type story… original.
Beautiful story about solidarity of women through the ages. Recommend to anyone who enjoys vivid descriptions and alternative lifestyle lived.
I really enjoyed City of Girls. It is one of my favorites.
Elizabeth Gilbert is, quite simply put, a magnificent story teller. If you’ve ever loved the theater, if you’ve ever loved New York, if you’ve ever had zany, kooky people whom you’ve loved in your formative years, this book is for you. Elegantly told whle being expertly understated, Vivian Morris recounts her early history in New York City, upon her arrival in 1941. Wise cracking, gum snapping, characters sprinkled amongst theater people in a delicious mix of Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder and Joseph Mankiewicz spun into a world that existed on the edges of Clare Booth Luce’s The Women. That is, if one of them had lived upstairs from a theater. Sipping martinis and coming up with one liners while the pianist plays Cole Porter-like tunes, the Lilly theatre’s inhabitants strive to stay in the game. It’s a story that’s impossible not to love.
Entertaining read about a young girl in N.Y. in the 40’s. I wondered a bit if the author had imposed current day sexual and morality standards on a character from the past. Although the main character has a lot of adventures, she is not triumphant or particularly inspiring.
I absolutely loved this book! As soon as I finished I wanted to immediately read it again!
Book Review: City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (Fiction) (Historical Fiction) (2019) Four Stars ****
Set during the WWII era of the 1940’s, shallow, self-absorbed twenty-year-old Vivian Morris finds herself tossed out of Vassar College for unbelievably poor academic performance. Lacking any guilt or sense of responsibility for her situation, Vivian’s no-nonsense, aloof, affluent parents, lose patience with their daughter’s lack of professional or matrimonial prospects, and send her off to spend the summer with Aunt Peg, free spirited, unconventional New York City small theater owner. Vivian is thrilled. Her goal? To have sex. Her life? To keep having even more sex. Her regret at the end of her life? That she should have and could have had even more sex.
Vivian forms friendships with showgirls who introduce her to the joys of one night stands with men they frequently pick up in bars. Having achieved her goal of sex, sex, sex, Vivian opts to remain in New York City, relying on her latent talent as a seamstress to become a costume maker for the theater, drawing a meager salary and justifying her presence in her aunt’s world.
Vivian’s idyllic existence comes crashing down after an ill-advised sexual liaison captured with photos by the irascible gossip columnist Walter Winchell. With the help of Vivian’s brother and his navy friend Frank, Vivian flees New York City for the anonymity of her parents’ home in upstate New York where she works in the office of her father’s mining company, gets engaged, becomes unengaged, then returns to the theater to help Aunt Peg with a war industry entertainment assignment. Vivian slowly discovers there are people in the world who do not belong to her world.
Vivian reconnects with an unlikely person from her past. This platonic liaison becomes the deepest, most satisfying relationship of her life. Vivian learns to accept herself with her faults, views others in the same way, and encourages her dear friend to see the truth of this belief.
Vivian now sees herself as a person of value, capable of love and loyalty. Despite this great self-acknowledgment, the story ends with Vivian’s regret of not having had more sex. The author believes this is not indicative of any negative aspect in Vivian’s personality. It simply is.
I totally enjoyed reading this book and was captivated by the story despite the lack of character and plot depth. The author offers insight into personality types which may be different from our own or what we are comfortable accepting. Some people just are not straight (straight meaning perfect, direct, unflawed). Get over it.
Best audiobook I’ve listened to since Daisy Jones. I purchased the paperback before it was even over because I know I’ll reread it again.u2063
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by is a wonderful look inside an unapologetic woman who lived and sexed her way through life with gusto, learning the trappings of society expectations the hard way, as a nonconformist.u2063 Another gem for this decorated author.
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I’m on a real roll with audiobooks. I never wanted this one to end and laughed constantly. Gilbert’s satirical voice and witty observations are my kind of humor, a bit dark and twisted and always unexpected.u2063
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This book follows the entire life of Vivian Morris but the opening era of 1940 drew me in.u2063
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I wish Vivian were real. I would monopolize every minute of her time to hear her stories. u2063
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Ladies… grab this book. Or better, listen to it first because Blair Brown nails the narration. Sometimes it’s the better experience.
Delightful, interesting characters as usual from Elizabeth Gilbert. Page turner and a Delightful romp through New York
A beautifully written novel that purports to be a letter from Vivian to her friend Frank’s daughter Angela, telling the truth about herself and what Frank meant to her. (In this respect, it reminds me a little of Peter Carey’s THE TRUTH HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG.) I loved Gilbert’s book partly for Vivian’s fresh voice and the lovely clarity of the writing, but also for the generosity of spirit, the celebration of strong women and their friendships, and the compassion at the core of this book. My favorite lines: “After a certain age, we are all walking around in this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries. our hearts grow sore and misshapen around all this pain–yet somehow, still, we carry on.”
I would like to thank Tandem Collective UK, Bloomsbury Publishing, and Elizabeth Gilbert for gifting me a copy of this book. I’ve loved being apart of the read along even if it took me a lot longer than expected (5 weeks to be exact).
I have so much to say about this book that it’s hard to know where to start. It took me along time and many pages to finally enjoy this book. The first 200 pages did not grab my attention and I really couldn’t get into the book. I was bored to be very honest. I’d say if you can’t wait 200 pages into a book for it to start to become enjoyable then I don’t recommend this book. If I hadn’t had this problem with the beginning of the book then I would have rated it a lot higher.
I loved that this book was set in New York as it’s one of my favourite places I’ve visited. To be able to experience New York from the 40’s to the 70’s was like a dream! I ended up loving the main character, Vivian Morris, who is such a quirky and vibrant character. I was glad to see so much historical accuracy. This book is full of women with such different personalities and each represent something unique. I also love how it is set in a theatre for the majority of the book. It’s not a book that is pushy with how feministic it is but it’s a nice undertone throughout the book. This book is all about growth. We literally see Vivian grow. Make mistakes and learn from then. I love how openly sex is spoken about in this book. Vivian enjoyed sex and wasn’t shy about it.
The fact that this book is actually a letter written by a very old Vivian is very interesting because we get her opinion on her younger self which makes it very funny and enjoyable to read. One thing I would say is that I wouldn’t be please to receive a 500+ pages letter from a woman I barely knew. Just saying! I felt like maybe that this book could have been cut in half in terms of what the letter was supposed to be about because I can’t see why someone would need your life story just to understand a relationship you have with their Dad. Saying this I loved her life story and seeing her age.
A brilliant historical fiction based in New York throughout the 40’s to 70’s.
I absolutely loved this book. It touched my soul. It was so incredibly real and it was like interacting with a person’s life in a way we don’t really get to do. I learned a lot from this book. It gave me a lot of peace but also a lot to think about. Highly recommend to literally anyone, it was such a phenomenal book.