City of Girls

By: Elizabeth Gilbert

Narrated by: Blair Brown

Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's Summary

The blazingly brilliant new novel from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the international best seller Eat Pray Love: a glittering coming-of-age epic stitched across the fabric of a lost New York. 

It is the summer of 1940. Nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris arrives in New York with her suitcase and sewing machine, exiled by her despairing parents. Although her quicksilver talents with a needle and commitment to mastering the perfect hair roll have been deemed insufficient for her to pass into her sophomore year of Vassar, she soon finds gainful employment as the self-appointed seamstress at the Lily Playhouse, her unconventional Aunt Peg's charmingly disreputable Manhattan revue theatre. There, Vivian quickly becomes the toast of the showgirls, transforming the trash and tinsel only fit for the cheap seats into creations for goddesses. 

Exile in New York is no exile at all: here in this strange wartime city of girls, Vivian and her girlfriends mean to be free, to get up to no good, to drink the heady highball of life itself to the last drop. And when the legendary English actress Edna Watson comes to the Lily to star in the company's most ambitious show ever, Vivian is entranced by the magic that follows in the wake of this true, true star. 

But there are hard lessons to be learned and bitterly regrettable mistakes to be made. Vivian learns that to live the life she wants, she must live many lives, ceaselessly and ingeniously making them new. 

'At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is,' she confides. And so Vivian sets forth her story, and that of the women around her - women who have lived as they truly are, out of step with a century that could never quite keep up with them.

©2019 Elizabeth Gilbert (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Brimming with wisdom and throughly entertaining

This book lived up to my every expectation. I'm devastated that I've finished it, but feel so enriched.

A delight

What a light and joyful yet significant story. It was stunningly read. I loved it!

Such a Beautiful story

Loved, loved, loved. Elizabeth Gilberts books are always amazing. Perfect choice on the narrators. Didn't stop listening.
I really enjoyed the character's

Exception

I have found this story telling so sublime and real without hesitation of facts that society always try to cover up.

Meandering

I found this story disjointed and meandering- lots of under developed relationships and characters. Feels like she was trying to do too much with this book. The reading and performance however was fantastic

Nostalgic

I really enjoy stories about historic events. The way the author linked the characters and explained sights and sounds made me feel I was in the story with them.

Charming, funny, serious, sad and dramatic, a real stirrer of emotions. The lady reading the story also made great use of different accents which kept me sucked in.

Joy expanded

Like always, Liz Gilbert never disappoints! A very special book, moving the boundaries and opening our minds! thank you!

So raw and powerful

Friendship, lust, joy, guilt, grief and just life in a story … a beautiful, story well told too… I loved every chapter and every character in it…

Delightful!

This story is just delightful! Full of life, joy and colourful lessons in one the saddest times the world has ever known. The reader brings the story, in the form of a letter, to life and made me wish I was part of her ‘family’.

Great book not too heavy not too light

Great read; first half abit slow but there were some great moments and dialogues. Loved it towards the end.

One of my favourite ever audibles

I bought this book without reading what it was about, just because I adore Elizabeth Gilbert from her social media pages - even though admittedly I'd only read Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic previously. I expected Elizabeth to be narrating and thought it was likely a positive inspiration or guidance type of book, so I was a bit taken back to hear a different voice. I find it so difficult to connect with narrators- either loving or hating it. Well I LOVE Blair Brown, I can't even imagine Elizabeth narrating it, Blair is incredible with all the different accents and characters, I wouldn't have picked this book of the shelf but I'm so glad I downloaded it - it's definitely one that should be 'listened' to so you can really take in the surroundings and especially the characters. It's kind of slow-paced but deliberately - between Elizabeth and Blair you are taken back in time to 1940's New York City and I honestly felt like I was there, witnessing a snap shot in time, a life so different from my own but one I would jump at to live in for a while. You don't understand the person she is writing to until towards the end of the book but this one way letter format is perfect. It sounds much less self-obsessed and you really connect with the main character; Vivian. I must confess I put audible on whilst I do boring jobs or the school run to make that time more enjoyable - but I would listen to this every chance I got, it's more about feeling like you are there living it more than a story of dramas, I think there IS only 1 major drama half way through, the rest is just experiencing and enjoying, it's so plausible that this was someones life I wondered a few times if it was a true story, there are certainly true parts about the war in it - whilst the war is always kind of background anyway. When it ended I had that book-grief , a hole you're not sure how to fill because there'll not be anything quite the same but you're not ready for something new or different yet. Like you get with series-binging too. It was FABULOUS, Elizabeth & Blair have created a masterpiece between them in my eyes (or ears)

Chick Lit at its worst.

Juvenile prose. I do not believe this would have been published if it was a first novel.

Enjoyable but doesnt hit the mark.

Elizabeth Gilbert has done, as usual, a whole load of research in order to write this novel. It was very a very entertaining story and at times, thought provoking, but ultimately it left me feeling unsatisfied. Listen to her previous novel The Signature of All Things. Fabulous book.

Enchanting I lived every minute of this book

I love the way Elizabeth Gilbert writes. I feel I witnessed every moment of Vivienne’s life . Very humbling a lesson to be learned not to be judgemental about how people live their lives.Thank you

Couldn't finish

Sooooo bad. So many books! So little time to waste reading trash such as this.

Didn't really go anywhere,

I was overall, disappointed with this book. the start was promising and I loved the background and the building if the characters. Half way through I forgot that we were waiting to find out the 'truth' behind Vivienne and Angela's father's relationship.
then it started to get rushed, very little detail on the new characters, whole decades were described in a couple of sentences.
when we were introduced to Frank, it was more disappointment and a very rushed ending, it was almost as though the author had reached her word count and had to stop.

Entertaining and easy

The narration to this story is superb, her accents are very real and transport you straight to Manhattan. An entertaining story about the fast paced party life of a young woman. I really enjoyed it.

struggled with it

I'm not sure if it was the readers voice or the fact it was supposed to represent a letter (the longest letter ever!!)

Stuck with it

I was unsure for quite a while but loved it in the end. One of my favourite authors.

A book of two halves

The first half told the story of a girl I found impossible to like, and hence the story was quite hard going. For me it was difficult to find any empathy with any of the characters. However the second half, once she had cleaned up her act, was a decent enough tale. The narrator’s voice was a little grating but was listenable.