Madeline
City of Girls is unlike Elizabeth Gilbert’s other well known book, Eat Pray Love. City of Girls is a historical fiction novel taking place in New York. But similar to Eat Pray Love, this is a book about a woman discovering herself and finding her way in life. It is about a girl making her way into womanhood in an unconventional and unique way.
Premise of City of Girls
The year is 1940 and Vivian has failed out of her freshman year of college. Since her parents do not know what to do with her, they ship her off to live with her Aunt Peg in Manhattan. Aunt Peg runs a playhouse in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. This playhouse is full of interesting characters. There are show girls and actors, writers, and Olive, the strict playhouse office manager. Vivian finds herself becoming the costume designer and finding herself fitting right in with the show girls who live fast lifes of alcohol, smoking, and boys.
When a famous British actress finds herself at a production at the playhouse, Vivan becomes a fast friend and things are turning around for the playhouse. That is until scandal occurs around Vivian, the actress, and the actress’s beautiful and young husband. Vivian is then shipped back to her hometown, where her life will never be the same. She starts to caulk her time in New York as a fun time and goes through the motions of living her life the way her parents want her to. But she cannot continue living this way. Her heart belongs in New York.
She returns to New York to open a wedding dress shop although she vows to never get married. This is where she grows out of her wild phase and learns how to live her life without scandle and starts living a sustainable life that is still unconventional. This is where she lives out the rest of her days where she finds herself writing this story to explain how she came to love the addressee’s father.
Young Women Finding Her Way
The story of a young women finding her way is not a new concept. We saw this in The Henna Artist, The Rose Code, and The Queen’s Gambit. What makes these books weed themselves out from the others is what makes the women find her way. In The Henna Artist, it was needing to raise her sister. In The Rose Code, it was the war. And in The Queen’s Gambit, it was the discovery of chess. In City of Girls it is the playhouse and more specifically New york as a whole.
These elements start become their own character in the story. And in order for it to be a successful story, this character needs to come to life. And in this book, the playhouse as a character becomes a very well thought out character. The reader starts to get a visual of its physical qualities. The people who patronize it and the people who work on the plays. The playhouse as a character in this book ends up being a very successful element to making this young woman find her way.
Final Thoughts
City of Girls is a historical fiction book about living a unique way in the 1940s in New York. Although the scandal in the middle of the book gives the storyline a push, I felt it was unneeded. It was enough to make the playhouse come to life. What felt interesting and fun in the book is how Vivian changes through womanhood through the playhouse and discovers an unconventional way to live her life that suits her.
