An Ode To Femininity | A Review Of City Of Girls By Elizabeth Gilbert.

I was promised that time would heal all wounds and genuine apologies or efforts to make amends could right wrongs but life is never, has never and will never be that simple and forgiving.

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I can’t remember exactly what made me decide that I just had to read City of Girls but I suppose
it had something to do with the rave reviews, blurbs like this: “…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” and that I’d read (and loved) her book about living a fearless and fulfilling
creative life—Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.

I imagine it was the potent combination of those things because I’d warned myself not to buy
any more books until I’d read at least two from my pile of unfinished books, but I simply
couldn’t help myself and I went ahead, bought it and devoured it while ignoring the rest.
I would call City of Girls(COG) an ode to femininity. I was impressed by how even though there
were both rich female and male characters, the women were always the ones in the spotlight. I
know it’s easy to say it’s natural since the protagonist is a woman, but there’s just something
about it that constantly pushed the female characters forward. And I loved it.

COG tells the story of Vivian Morris and her very eventful life in New York City beginning in
1940 till 2010 as she narrates it to Angela, the daughter of the one man she truly loved. The
entire story was an answer to a question Angela had asked Vivian: “…what were you to my
father?”

True to the blurbs, the book is filled with glamour, sex (lots of it but not always in detail) and
cheeky humour (I remember chuckling at her narration of how she lost her virginity).
One might say that City of Girls should be reserved for “adults” and I’m not sure I quite agree
(but there is a solid argument for it). There is a lot of “mature” information, that much I’ll agree
to, but I think it’s also important that women, young and old, are exposed to a woman that defies
all convention when it comes to how women are taught or expected to be or act. It should be
taught that it is possible to be more, or just different.

The strongest and my favourite theme in the book is female friendships and relationships: how
we make them, how we grow them, how we outgrow them and how we break them.
It made me think a lot about my own enduring friendships with women. There’s something
sacred about true friendships between women. When you’re a woman, and you’ve really got a
friend in a woman, you’ve got someone you can become your truest, shameless self with. For
starters, it is possible that you’re burdened by similar things, dealt with identical challenges or
maybe even want the same things.

That is not to say that female friendships thrive only when there are similar stories or
desires—women are far more complex and varied than that—but there’s always a connecting
force that lays a foundation for a bond that cannot be found elsewhere in my opinion.
My major and probably only grouse with the book is how much of the book was devoted to more
or less the same tales of Vivian and her then best friend’s wild nights on the town when all I
wanted was to learn more about the cast of characters I’d earlier been introduced to.

The excerpt above is my favourite. It resonated with me because it is something I’ve grown to
understand about life. I grew up being told, hell, I was promised that time would heal all wounds
and genuine apologies or efforts to make amends could right wrongs but life is never, has never
and will never be that simple and forgiving.

There are always consequences for choices and actions—good and bad ones. The good we never
have to worry about because, well, they always tend to be in our favour, but the bad? A lot of it
never truly vanishes. We just learn to go on and fight to thrive despite them, I guess.
I would love to see a film adaptation of this book. With the right screenplay and the right
actresses, the raw, honest and complicated portrayals of the women in this book would be
something to behold.

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About The Writer: Ehmie is a writer and tech professional. You can find her on Instagram as @earthwindandehmie where she talks about books, music and anything else she finds interesting.