Book Review of " City of Girls " by Elizabeth Gilbert
#City of Girls
“Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there
is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you
are”
City
of Girls is a fiction narrated from an older woman perspective in response to a
letter from “Angela” asking about the protagonist’s (Vivian’s) relationship
with her father (Angela’s father)
The
story took us to New York City and Theater life of 1940s… The main lead –
Vivian shares the story of her youth which is a detailed description of the
theater where she used to work with her aunt Peg, how her parents considered
her not so (maybe not at all) valuable as compared to their other child, her
relationship or the lack of it with her brother (Walter) who later was killed
during a navy operation in war, how she valued her aunt (Peg) more than a
family and various other characters that walked in and out of her life during
the theater days and afterwards when she starts a business of sewing wedding
gowns.
It
also depicts in a very delicate and unconventional love that she shares with
Angela’s father in which the closest that they get to each other physically is touching
the hand and yet share the deepest love.
It
also talks really often about the more or less “meaningless sex” that Vivian
continues to have with other men and how she is open and vocal about it as she
has made peace with the kind of person she is and the preferences she has
despite the social norms being otherwise.
Quoting
from the book:
“At one point in a
woman’s life, she is tired of being ashamed all the time”
In
my view, the book is similar in many other book about a female protagonist carving her own way of life in a not so accepting society and having sex with
multiple partners... The key difference, however, is the settings in which
Vivian operates – be it New York City, war backdrop, unconventional theater
characters…
The
book is worth one time read while on a long vacation!
--
Suchetaa
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