City of Girls, Elizabeth Gilbert
City of Girls, Elizabeth Gilbert
127 Rating(s)
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

City of Girls

Bestseller

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Narrator: Blair Brown

Unabridged: 15 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 06/04/2019


Synopsis

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.

"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.

About Elizabeth Gilbert

If you have ever seen the movie Coyote Ugly, you have seen the adaptation of the article written by American author, Elizabeth Gilbert, for GQ Magazine, which described her experiences working as a bartender on the Lower East Side of New York City. Gilbert held many jobs after earning her degree in Political Science from New York University. All of her labor jobs gave her inspiration for her fictional books and magazine articles.

Elizabeth Gilbert had almost immediate success with her writing, but the pinnacle of success for her was her book Eat, Pray, Love, which was written after a very upsetting divorce and she took off on a healing adventure throughout the world. After her first book, which was a collection of short stories, Pilgrim, she was praised as a " young writer of incandescent talent". Eat, Pray, Love was translated into thirty languages, selling over 12 million copies. In 2010, Julia Robert's starred in a film adaptation of the movie.

Gilbert's latest books are Committed, The Signature of All Things, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and City of Girls, about the NYC theater world of the 1940's. She lives in NYC, rural New Jersey, and anywhere else her adventures take her.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ron on June 03, 2019

Gilbert’s narrator is an old woman named Vivian, looking back at herself as a naive 19-year-old who had just failed out of Vassar College. (She ranked 361 in a class of 362, surpassing only a girl who contracted polio.) Baffled by a daughter with no matrimonial or professional prospects, Vivian’s pa......more

Goodreads review by Justin on September 01, 2019

City of Girls is a genre-bending, uniquely-structured, light-hearted, deeply-profound kind of novel, whatever that means. I'm honestly still in awe of it. The first half has zero conflict and yet never fails to engage. I devoured every moment of being young and careless in 1940's New York, amid show......more

Goodreads review by Nilufer on June 13, 2020

Three joyful, glamorous time travelling to 40’s, but travel time was too long stars!!! I really tossed around giving three to four stars, because I enjoyed the writing but not sure about the character development! I really enjoyed some parts so much! Having fun to learn Broadway theater life and sca......more

Goodreads review by Beth on August 06, 2019

City of Girls started as a 5 star read. 2/3 in it fell to 3 stars. By the end I settled on 2 stars. The story is not fluid, nor does it make much sense. In 1940's New York City theater district, the play 'City of Girls' is gaining momentum. 'City of Girls' is an off-Broadway play written and execute......more

Goodreads review by jessica on May 07, 2020

okay, first i want to say that if i sent someone a letter asking ‘what were you to my father?’ and they responded with a 450+ page answer, i would literally roll my eyes so hard, they would probably get permanently stuck. but seriously, how in the world did elizabeth gilbert think that writing this......more


Quotes

Praise for City of Girls:

"A novel as vibrant, sexy and wise as the author’s megahit Eat Pray Love." People Magazine

"The girls and women of the book don't simply endure: they thrive, they dance, they live. Grab some champagne and toast…" – OprahMag.com

"Gilbert’s new novel… is a pitch-perfect evocation of the era’s tawdry glamour and a coming-of-age story whose fizzy surface conceals unexpected gradations of feeling." –New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)

"Gilbert stays true to her pledge that she won’t let her protagonist’s sexuality be her downfall, like so many literary heroines before her. That may be the most radical thing about a novel that otherwise revels in the old-fashioned pleasures of storytelling — the right to fall down rabbit holes, and still find your own wonderland." – EntertainmentWeekly.com

"A breezy, entertaining read — and really, something better: a lively, effervescent, and sexy portrait of a woman living in a golden time… Passion, Gilbert never tires of informing us, that's the stuff of life. Not money, not the Darwinian struggle for survival, certainly not the family you are born with — passion is our raison d'etre. It's what makes us feel we are rocketing through the streets of New York City during the best days of our lives." – NPR

"Her story is rich with memorable characters… the larger-than-life leading lady… the alluring leading man—and a vibrant setting… Gilbert's expert world-building, flawless dialogue, and attention to detail places you right in the middle of the action." – Buzzfeed News

"The lush prose and firm belief in love that suffuses City of Girls will be a cool place to hide out as we enter a heated summer season of contentious presidential politics."—San Francisco Chronicle

"[Elizabeth Gilbert’s] witty dialogue sparkles like diamonds in champagne." – The Washington Post

"Of course, one could — and many will — read it on the beach, but consider instead staying up late to turn pages after midnight, next to an open window on a hot summer night, fireworks flaring in the distance. That experience would mirror this novel’s story and its style: intimate and richly sensual, razzle-dazzle with a hint of danger." – USA Today

"A light, fizzy summer cocktail with a strikingly complex finish… Gilbert’s book is as deliciously refreshing as a fizzy summer drink, but truly, in its second half, it’s also more like fine wine, thoughtfully crafted to be savored for its benefits." – The Boston Globe

"A fizzy cocktail of a novel…" – The Wall Street Journal