Exploring New York’s Glitzy Era: City of Girls Review

Before I start this review, I have a question for you. Is it possible to like an author’s books if you seriously dislike the author? Asking because Elizabeth Gilbert is one seriously problematic character (for me personally).

The first book of hers I read was The Signature of All Things, which I quite liked. I then tried Eat, Pray, Love. Everybody around me was talking about it and made her seem like a kind of feminist goddess. I heard so much about how brave she was and how she lived life on her own terms that I had to read the book. Sigh! I ended up wanting to vomit at what I thought was a ghastly display of textbook narcissism. Was I the only person not surprised when she broke up with her Brazilian boyfriend from Eat, Pray, Love a few years back?

I thought I’d give her another chance with City of Girls, but I really struggled to finish the book.

What’s City of Girls about?

Vivian Morris is a 19-year-old Vassar dropout and sensualist who her disapproving parents send to live with her Aunt Peg in Manhattan. Peg runs a down-on-its-luck theater that doubles as a boardinghouse for showgirls and others involved in its productions, all of which is overseen by Peg’s secretary – Olive.

A storied British actress named Edna Parker Watson and her doltish husband flee London when the Blitz destroys their house. They, too, are taken in by Peg, and the fulcrum of the book is the musical created as a vehicle for Edna, which ends up saving the playhouse from financial ruin.

~ Synopsis from goodreads

My Review

So, yes, I dislike the author, and I’m not too fond of this book. But I”ll try to give an objective review.

What I like about the book

It’s a fast, snappy coming-of-age novel. It’s easy to read, well-written, and I really liked most of the characters. The setting of World War 2, New York, as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl, was also on point.

Vivian is hedonistic and loves to live life to the fullest. Her motto is:

Unfortunately, what she is is a bit of twat, to put it mildly. Worse, she is not a particularly entertaining twat – quite boring, actually! I don’t understand exactly how it happened, but a book about parties, sex, fashion, and glamour somehow bored me.

Vivian’s character was also just too over the top with her casual promiscuity. I quickly grew tired of hearing about all her one-night conquests (which were too many to count). And when she gets into trouble, her suddenly trying to play the innocent ingenue left a bad taste in my mouth.

Still, I was prepared to brush this off. There are so many teenage girls like Vivian – self-obsessed and vain. I might not like the character, but I could understand her.

What I dislike about the book

In this book, Vivian is writing about her escapades to Angela – a woman who is curious about Vivian’s relationship with her dead father. Angela asks her a very pointed question: What were you to my father?

The response is a 450+ page tome about Vivian’s life. She talks about her parents, schooling, aunt, uncle, friends, etc., but very little about the key question asked. Angela’s dad shows up only in the last portion of the book, and Vivian has surprisingly little to say about him. If I were Angela, I would be left very meh by this.

The second half was fairly serious and sometimes moving, but it didn’t quite tie in closely with the first half. For one, the characters I grew to like weren’t around in the second part, and the new characters didn’t capture my attention enough. In addition, the sudden shift from fun sexcapades to serious wartime stories was also really jarring and felt very disconnected – like two very different books.

Overall, there just wasn’t enough heft in the book – not in plot or character development. It’s like any run-of-the-mill chick-lit, and I cannot understand the hoopla in the media surrounding it.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it?