Review: City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

Nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has always been a headstrong girl. When she's kicked out of Vassar due to poor grades, her affluent parents send her to New York to live with her Aunt Peg.  Vivian, used to small town life, is forced into a whole new world, for Peg owns a lackluster midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse.

There, Vivian is introduced to a gamut of eccentric characters that shift her world-view. When she makes a mistake that results in scandal, this newly crafted world is upended.  Though devastating, it awakens her the sort of life she wants to lead and the steps it will take to achieve it. Set in the 1940s against the backdrop of great societal change, Vivian must realize the sacrifices she must take to prove that it doesn't take perfection to achieve the status of a good person.

Told by eighty-nine year old Vivian looking back on the years that shaped her, City of Girls is a powerful story of freedom, desire, love and adventure.

Those who know me well know that I typically hold out on reading titles people are raving about, if only to have the ability to make my own opinion without the influence of others. That said, the moment I read the premise of this novel, I knew I had to read it immediately.  I’m not drawn to light and fluffy reads, but ones with vulnerable and genuine characters who aren’t afraid to embrace their flaws.

City of Girls is filled to the brim with truly remarkable characters in the immensely captivating backdrop of New York City. We follow Vivian and this cast of characters on a roller coaster of emotions, from partying until the wee hours of the night, abandoning all of society’s preconceived notions on how young women should behave, to facing the consequences of such freedoms.  Without revealing too much, it isn’t until Vivian is a much older woman that she truly embraces and comprehends what it takes to make her feel fulfilled.

What makes this novel particularly remarkable is that Vivian doesn’t come to this resolution easily; it takes years and years of trial and error, of love and loss, to discover.  The feeling readers are left with, a sense of utter fulfillment, is what makes this such a tremendous and valuable read. I’ll join the many others in a chorus of shouting about this book from the rooftops.  This is the book that women of all ages should read when tackling the challenges of understanding one’s place in the world.  This isn’t a quest that we only endure as young women, but at several different points in our lives.

I cannot wait for this title to come out in paperback, for I will bump it up to the top of the reading list for the book club I read. So much to embrace, discuss, and revel in.  A truly tremendous read, one that will have a lasting spot in my soul for some time. Highly, highly recommended.