Review: City of Girls

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My first Elizabeth Gilbert book. Boy was I excited! I mean Eat, Pray, Love didn't do it for me, the concept was bonkers I thought, so this one was totally something different and I was definitely on the edge of my seat, just waiiiting for this novel to be approved by my library!

And finally it showed up!

......

But what a disappointment sigh. Let me explain in the review.

We first get a glance at an almost 90 year old woman depicting her life as a 19 year old in the 40's and how she later changed through experiences, friendships and new found love.

That was it. As a summary, that was literally it.

It should have deterred me, should have been my first warning sign that this novel wasn't as cracked up as it was supposedly shown.

But still I persevered. Till 69 pages anyway. That's where the issues dropped by and said hey, let's just add more complications and doubts to completely ruin your reading.

And they sure did ruin everything.

My biggest issue was how almost the entire time, all I got was how boring and tiresome the girl's love life was, because she was still a mary the virgin bottle and hadn't done the most exciting thing that most young girls would have loved to do: sex.

First of all the timeline is shown as the 1940s, and not the 60's or the early 2000's. So according to the time period, there is no way a girl of that age and that time period should be this excited about losing her virginity unless she was a prostitute or a street bum. And since this girl seems to be from neither category, then this was just useless point making on the girl's behalf, or even a point worth justifying as she went socializing around the block. And most of the time all she can think about is sex, sex, sex. God there are so many other things you can do, imagine, think, work on, rather than just losing your virginity. Not every young adult is dying to lose her virginity, my dear, lost girl, so this author clearly doesn't know how to portray a picture right.

My second issue is that there are only so many issues a book can hold, and this book exceeded far too much in terms of length. I've seen more issues discussed in less pages than this. So a very long drag and a waste of my time.

Third issue. If this girl's mother wanted her daughter to change or do better, she could not have thought of any other sophisticated, grown up, organised woman? Only Aunt Peg could do the job? Seriously?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved Aunt Peg, she was that fun, wacky, sort of cuckoo aunt that everyone loved having by their side, especially when the adults were no fun.
But she was not a role model that would have changed or molded the girl in the way society at the time would have thought best.

That's literally all of the issues that I've had with the book. All of which had left enough of a damning effect on me.

The effect being to never pick this book up again or the author.

So not a recommend, and what sadness, considering it was ranked so high as 2019's top priority.

Geez.

Until the next page,

J.B

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