AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
From the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and The Signature of All Things, a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don't have to be a good girl to be a good person.
"A spellbinding novel about love, freedom, and finding your own happiness." - PopSugar
"Intimate and richly sensual, razzle-dazzle with a hint of danger." -USA Today
"Pairs well with a cocktail...or two." -TheSkimm
"Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are."
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.
In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.
Now eighty-nine years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
From the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and The Signature of All Things, a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don't have to be a good girl to be a good person.
"A spellbinding novel about love, freedom, and finding your own happiness." - PopSugar
"Intimate and richly sensual, razzle-dazzle with a hint of danger." -USA Today
"Pairs well with a cocktail...or two." -TheSkimm
"Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are."
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.
In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.
Now eighty-nine years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.
Praise for City of Girls:
"A novel as vibrant, sexy and wise as the author’s megahit Eat
Pray Love." – People Magazine
"The girls and women of the book don't simply endure: they thrive,
they dance, they live. Grab some champagne and toast…" –
OprahMag.com
"Gilbert’s new novel… is a pitch-perfect evocation of the era’s
tawdry glamour and a coming-of-age story whose fizzy surface
conceals unexpected gradations of feeling." –New York Times Book
Review (Editor’s Choice)
"Gilbert stays true to her pledge that she won’t let her
protagonist’s sexuality be her downfall, like so many literary
heroines before her. That may be the most radical thing about a
novel that otherwise revels in the old-fashioned pleasures of
storytelling — the right to fall down rabbit holes, and still find
your own wonderland." – EntertainmentWeekly.com
"A breezy, entertaining read — and really, something better: a
lively, effervescent, and sexy portrait of a woman living in a
golden time… Passion, Gilbert never tires of informing us, that's
the stuff of life. Not money, not the Darwinian struggle for
survival, certainly not the family you are born with — passion is
our raison d'etre. It's what makes us feel we are rocketing through
the streets of New York City during the best days of our lives." –
NPR
"Her story is rich with memorable characters… the larger-than-life
leading lady… the alluring leading man—and a vibrant setting…
Gilbert's expert world-building, flawless dialogue, and attention
to detail places you right in the middle of the action." – Buzzfeed
News
"The lush prose and firm belief in love that suffuses City of Girls
will be a cool place to hide out as we enter a heated summer season
of contentious presidential politics."—San Francisco Chronicle
"With all the conversations about sexual consent, it's risen up
around the #MeToo movement… This author doesn't want us to forget
there's also such a thing as female desire, the main character
wants to have sex and she's not shy about hunting for it." – Whoopi
Goldberg, The View 'Ladies Get Lit Summer Reads 2019'
"Glittering, hot, funny, and drenched in pleasure… Elizabeth
Gilbert is one of the most dazzling and luminous writers of our
generation. She invites us to challenge the rules, hunt down
adventure, and bear hug the highs and lows of life." – Marie
Forleo, MarieTV
"A moving novel about one woman's coming-of-empowerment… Gilbert
wrote the kind of big-hearted historical novel you'll burn through
in a weekend, then pass on to a friend." – Refinery 29
"[Elizabeth Gilbert’s] witty dialogue sparkles like diamonds in
champagne." – The Washington Post
"Of course, one could — and many will — read it on the beach, but
consider instead staying up late to turn pages after midnight, next
to an open window on a hot summer night, fireworks flaring in the
distance. That experience would mirror this novel’s story and its
style: intimate and richly sensual, razzle-dazzle with a hint of
danger." – USA Today
"A light, fizzy summer cocktail with a strikingly complex finish…
Gilbert’s book is as deliciously refreshing as a fizzy summer
drink, but truly, in its second half, it’s also more like fine
wine, thoughtfully crafted to be savored for its benefits." – The
Boston Globe
"The perfect summer read." – Hello Giggles
"A glamorous, sexy novel." – PopSugar
"Packed with showgirls, playboys, and sex—lots of it…being a ‘good
girl’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be." – InStyle
"…pure, unadulterated entertainment." – The Daily Beast
"The descriptions... of outfits, of drinks, of faces—are delicious,
and the smart, snappy dialogue races along like a screwball movie."
– The Seattle Times
"Fiercely feminist, as well as jam-packed with uplifting truths
about love and freedom, this phantasmagoria is both a feast for the
senses and a balm for the soul." – Esquire.com
"City of Girls is smart and wise, and if you also want your beach
read to speak to your sense of desire, longing, adventure, and
coming of age, it certainly will not
disappoint." –goop.com
"A fizzy cocktail of a novel…" – The Wall Street
Journal
"Sparkling… City of Girls begs big questions about sex,
chosen families, and being a woman." – Marie Claire
"When Elizabeth Gilbert set out to write City of Girls, her goal
was to tell a story of female promiscuity that didn’t end in death
or misfortune—a direct and delicious rebuttal to the tragic, sexist
fates of the Emma Bovarys and Anna Kareninas of the canon. The
result is a wildly entertaining summertime romp." –Elle
"City of Girls tells the story of teenage Vivian’s discovery of the
life she wants to live: one full of pleasure, fun, frivolity and
even scandal among the charismatic people who populate her aunt’s
midtown theater." – Good Housekeeping
"[In City of Girls] there are some of the most brilliant and
truthful evocations of youthful sexual exploration that you’ll ever
read. Gilbert says in her foreword that she set out to write a
novel about ‘promiscuous girls whose lives are not destroyed by
their sexual desires’. She has triumphed." – Spectator USA
"Elizabeth Gilbert—the best-selling writer, matron saint of
divorced women, modern symbol of follow-your-bliss wisdom, believer
in magic, and Oprah approved contemporary guru—has decided to go
back in time… Ultimately, Gilbert wants us to question all the
judgement society tosses at women like Vivian—and to question the
nagging voice inside every girl telling her to be good."
–Cosmopolitan
"City of Girls embraces. . . the power of a woman
breaking from a traditional path, and the wisdom of taking true,
two-handed joy in the pleasures that life offers up… City of
Girls is an unbeatable beach read, loaded with humor and
insight." – Newsday
"This is a booze-and sex-filled romp that, in the words of showgirl
Celia Ray, ‘makes you want to smoke too many cigarettes and laugh
with your head thrown back.’" – KMUW / Wichita NPR 89.1
"City of Girls centers on relationships among women… exploring the
promises and pitfalls of female friendships [and] the importance
both of owning our mistakes and forgiving ourselves as well as
others." – CS Monitor
"City of Girls is more than a love letter to New York—it’s a
colorful portrait of what it means to be part of a theater company,
or more accurately, to become a ‘theater person’… Gilbert brings
the reader into every moment happening just behind the
curtain." --Bust Magazine
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