You don't have to be a good girl to be a good person.
Confession- I have not read any of Elizabeth Gilbert's fiction, and I didn't finish Eat, Pray, Love. I can only say it was a busy time, and I just never finished. But I LOVE Elizabeth Gilbert. And she LOVES this new novel she's written.
This novel has been named a Most Anticipated Book by Oprah, Real Simple, Buzzfeed, Good Housekeeping, Goodreads, and Me.
The novel takes place in the New York theater world during the 1940s. It's told from the perspective of an older woman looking back on her life. She has some regrets, but it's mostly a pleasurable stroll down memory lane.
Vivian Morris had just been kicked out of Vassar College because of her performance so, her parents send her to Manhattan to live with her aunt, who owns a theater in Midtown called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian meets an entire cast of colorful characters who are much different than the upper-crust society friends she's used to. She befriends and becomes enamored with many of them until she makes a personal mistake that results in a professional scandal.
Ultimately, as scandal is wont to do, it leads her to a new understanding of herself and the life she wants, and so now at eighty-nine years old, Vivian tells her story at last about those years at the playhouse and how they altered the course of her entire life. And as only Vivian can say, "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is."
