A review by kari_f
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

3.5



“I hope you’re having a good time... People will tell you not to waste your youth having too much fun, but they’re wrong. Youth is an irreplaceable treasure, and the only respectable thing to do with irreplaceable treasure is to waste it.”

The first half of City of Girls plays out according to this advice; we see the gritty, boozy, sensual, thrill-seeking lifestyles of the young and beautiful in 1940s NYC. Small blunders turn into bad habits, and it’s clear throughout that multiple characters are headed toward catastrophe. 

If the first half of the book is careening toward chaos, the second half is learning from mistakes and moving on. We see the maturation of a listless young woman who isn’t really sure of what she wants out of life.

With vivid sensory details, the reader can almost hear the theater music and feel the silky fabrics and see the vibrant colors of the stage costumes. Gilbert has a way with words, and this book is like her others, in that she engages the reader with her beautiful language. There were a few sections where (for me) the story felt slow, but the fluid and descriptive language kept me invested in the story despite any plot lags.

City of Girls includes many dichotomies: listlessness and purpose, debauchery and reckoning, lust and love, denial and rage, rationalized ignorance and reflective discovery. Gender-related stigmas are addressed head-on. In many cases, incidents and judgments are reflected upon through the lenses of age and experience, and the reader can see where  leaps in societal norms have occurred and where they haven’t.

This story doesn’t box itself into one genre, and it won’t appeal to everyone. In fact, I would wager that there’s at least one aspect of someone’s personality or character that will upset or even offend any given reader, and I think this is done intentionally. There are no perfect or polished people in this book, and everybody has skeletons in their closet and secrets hidden beneath the surface. Not only is this a well-told and beautiful story, but it encourages a bit of self-reflection and vulnerability in the reader. 
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