This is likely the first book I am pretty excited to share about since I started my blog! City of Girls is the coming of age story of Vivian Morris who from a young age realized she did not fit the mold her family expected her to. As an old woman she is telling her story to ‘Angela’. You do not find out until the end who Angela is. As a young adult she moves to new York City with her Aunt Peg who owns a theater, the Lily Playhouse. Vivi grows up around the colorful and eccentric theater folk in the Lily and many of them end up becoming like family to her.
She makes mistakes along the way and you follow her through her journey of being an innocent young adult who has a lot to learn to becoming an interesting woman. You also have some history in the book, specifically surrounding New York City. It starts in the summer of 1940 which is where Vivi falls in love with New York City and the unconventional lifestyle of those who surround her at the Lilly Playhouse and ends in the early 70s. She describes as the city changes from the 40s, through WW2, to the 50s and the hippie era of the 60s. This book is a must for anyone who loves New York City!
I will be very honest, parts of the book are a bit slow while others are very interesting. Nonetheless, once I got to the last 10% of the book I could not put it down! The main thing I loved about this book is that it’s not just about following Vivi’s journey from a girl to a woman and seeing the mistakes she makes and what she learns from them but this book is about so much more. This book is about embracing our imperfections and about being who we are meant to be despite other’s judgement. Many of the things we feel make us imperfect actually do not matter in the grand scheme of things and much of these feelings are not because we are flawed or imperfect but because society tells us we need to be a certain way. All of the characters have flaws or are imperfect in some ways by society’s standards yet deep down, they are good people. This book is also about forgiveness- not just forgiveness for others but forgiveness for oneself. I loved the message that I found behind it and despite it’s slow parts, I definitely recommend this one ! I gave it 4 stars on Good Reads. If you read this book, I would love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for visiting!
-Jenny