City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

★★★☆☆

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert was a popular choice amongst us Brunch Book Club ladies, and I for one loved it!

Our protagonist, Vivian Morris, is sent off to New York to live with her Aunt Peg at the Lily Playhouse and takes to the theatre lifestyle a little too well! I absolutely loved this book – the colourful characters, the scandals, the heartbreaks... Gilbert created a world that feels so alive, and at the time, so fragile.

A collective issue we all seemed to have with the book was how rushed the later years of Vivian's life was – the author clearly wanted to write a book set in New York City in the 1940s and the ending seemed like an afterthought, which was disappointing.

Similarly, the ending included an unbelievable plot device that made this fall just short of a five-star read. That said, we can all forgive Elizabeth Gilbert because for the majority of it, we loved the ride.