{"id":96181,"date":"2019-05-14T11:32:25","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T00:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=96181"},"modified":"2019-05-30T15:51:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T04:51:40","slug":"review-city-of-girls-elizabeth-gilbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2019\/05\/14\/review-city-of-girls-elizabeth-gilbert\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\nThere are few things as enticing as a new book from Elizabeth Gilbert.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\"City<\/a>

Elizabeth Gilbert<\/p><\/div>\n

Gilbert is royalty among American writers today, having been crowned doubly as a commercial success for the international phenomenon Eat Pray Love<\/em><\/a> and also as a powerhouse of critical acclaim for her widely celebrated books, including her Women\u2019s Prize-listed novel The Signature of All Things<\/em><\/a>. You, our Booktopia customers, have praised her effervescent writing and life-changing stories in 5-star reviews, and our own team of booksellers got goosebumps when word of this new novel broke.<\/p>\n\n\n

That\u2019s right, Elizabeth Gilbert has returned with her first new novel since The Signature of All Things<\/em> and it\u2019s going to be a momentous occasion for book lovers. City of Girls<\/a><\/em> is a bright and compulsively readable coming-of-age story cast against the heady, glamourous, and harsh world of 1940s New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris comes into the care of her Aunt Peg, who lives above the shambolic Lily Playhouse in midtown Manhattan where the air is thick with music, cigarettes, gin, and show girls. Vivian is enchanted by these crass, slovenly, yet exquisitely beautiful women and finds favour among them by channelling her talent for dressmaking into costuming the Lily\u2019s tacky and ill-rehearsed shows. The show girls in turn initiate her into their world of rampant drinking, dancing, and sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story is complicated by the arrival of the remarkable Edna Watson, a revered English actress and long time friend of Peg. In her honour, the Lily attempts to mount its most ambitious production yet, placing the impoverished theatre and the hard-drinking lifestyle of its residents under immense pressure. In a great slew of events, our characters are transformed by some terrible mistakes and the distant fantasy of the war in the Pacific finally hits home for Vivian. In the later parts of the novel, Gilbert sweeps through Vivian\u2019s adult life – what she leaves behind and the small wonders of life that come good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers of City of Girls<\/em> will embrace these unbridled pursuits of discovery and pleasure by our story\u2019s narrator and in them find the thoughtful treatment of female sexuality and friendship, and the makeshift family that so resonated in The Signature of All Things<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s storytelling at its finest – deeply touching, richly researched, and endlessly funny. Gilbert\u2019s wit is of Olympian stamina and laser precision, and the voice that narrates this novel cannot be amply described – you need to experience it for yourself. I revelled in City of Girls<\/em> to the very last page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

City of Girls<\/em> is out on 4 June – pre-order your signed copy here<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It\u2019s storytelling at its finest – deeply touching, richly researched, and endlessly funny.” – Ben Hunter reviews City of Girls, the latest novel from Elizabeth Gilbert!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":96185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6678],"tags":[9236,1747,1795,4484,5949],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CityofGirlsReview-social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96181"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98510,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96181\/revisions\/98510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}