A review by fulltimefiction
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

2.0

I didn’t enjoy Eat Pray Love, at all. I had no idea the same author wrote this book but honestly that was a good thing. I approached this book with hopes for an enjoyable audiobook. And the narration was excellent. But sadly, the story wasn’t.

City of Girls might have been interesting… if I had anything to relate with. And I didn’t. My lifestyle is very different from Vivian’s and it’s good to read about people different than you… But I couldn't find one thing to connect with. Also, the whole book is about her sex life. Vivian, now 95 years old, is telling Angela, the daughter of a dear friend (and in my opinion the best relationship she had with anyone) about her life. It’s told in letter format and I didn’t mind it at all.

But there was barely a story of her life as much as tales of her sexual adventures. Which were many and she kept telling us about it and it got repetitive and frankly, boring. In retrospect, many reviews mentioned this but I didn’t read lots of reviews before starting this audio (and I can’t be picky since there aren’t many audios on overdrive I’m interested in and haven’t listened to yet).

The story dragged and tired me. The life at the theatre was interesting -kind of- as well as her last stage of life and living in New York during WWII (which saved this book from a 1-star rating). But all while listening to the audio, I rolled my eyes a lot. I really dislike vain charactesrs.

Do I recommend this book? I’m no American and the difference between her life (& lifestyle) and mine is.. vast to say the least. Many of my friends liked it so you might too. But probably not.