Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Paperback) by Elizabeth Gilbert - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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Michalyn rated it:

01/26/08

bookshelves: 2008, non-fiction

Read in January, 2008

Wow, this book took me on a roller-coaster ride. I couldn't decide if I loved it or hated it and it seemed like every few pages I'd go from thinking Gilbert was delightfully witty to thinking this was the most horribly self-absorbed person to ever set foot on the earth.

In the end the overall effect was rather like sitting at a party listening to someone tell a long involved story all about themselves, and you're alternately annoyed and fascinated and you want to get up and leave but she's j...more

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Cat rated it:

05/03/08

Read in August, 2007

I am embarrassed to read this book in public.
The title and the flowery, pasta-y cover screams, "I'm a book that contains the relentless rants of a neurotic 34 year-old-woman."
So, I'm afraid that the strangers on the Metro will think I identify with her.
But in the comfort of my own bed, I am totally falling for this memoir. Yes, Gilbert is emotionally self-indulgent (are we supposed to feel bad that she lost both houses in the divorce?), annoying (she's just tickled when she gain...more I am embarrassed to read this book in public.
The title and the flowery, pasta-y cover screams, "I'm a book that contains the relentless rants of a neurotic 34 year-old-woman."
So, I'm afraid that the strangers on the Metro will think I identify with her.
But in the comfort of my own bed, I am totally falling for this memoir. Yes, Gilbert is emotionally self-indulgent (are we supposed to feel bad that she lost both houses in the divorce?), annoying (she's just tickled when she gains 23 pounds after eating her way through Italy) and often really immature (oh! The endless, endless crying).
Then again, this is a memoir and when the writing is just so clever, so hospitable, so damn funny, it's really hard to hold that against Gilbert in the end.
The plot goes something like this: A 30-year-old writer has everything she wants, including several successful books, a husband and two houses. When she realizes she doesn't want to have kids and that she's not happy after all, she has a breakdown and leaves her husband. In the process, she realizes she has no identity.
Boo-hoo.
But instead, Gilbert decides to pack up and visit Italy, India and Indonesia, three places she hopes will ultimately bring her the inner balance she's been longing for. (And on the surface, this book is a really entertaining travel essay. Gilbert has this wonderfully quirky way of describing everything: A piece of pizza, a gelato. And the people.)
It's on her travels that I start to identify with Gilbert. When I was 21, I spent four months traveling in Australia. Just like Gilbert during her first weeks in Italy, I was totally elated by my freedom.
But about two weeks in, the loneliness came around and so did the anxiety.
My typical day started with this inner monologue: "I have to get to the museum before noon, so I can fit in the sea kayaking trip at 2. And then I have to rush to the grocery store to get food to make dinner in the stinking hostel kitchen because god forbid I go out to eat causeIHAVETOMAKETHEMONEYLASTFORTHREEMOREMONTHS!!!!"
Yikes. How I envied the Eurotrash who could just sit by the hostel pool and read all day. But if I didn't do everything, then I would have failed at traveling.
In retrospect, Australia was a turning-point in my young life. I had no idea that this "go-go-go" attitude was how I had been living for years. No wonder people thought I was uptight. Relaxing had never come easy to me, and it never will, but I'm getting a lot better at letting go and not worrying about seeing every last museum... so-to-speak.
Gilbert ruminates on this topic quite a bit in her book. Her first moment of true, unfettered happiness comes when she poaches some eggs and eats some asparagus on the floor of her apartment. So simple, but so fulfilling.
In India, she writes that "life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death." Gilbert is living in an Ashram, a place where people come to meditate and experience divinity. She's not very good at it, and she wonders if all the energy she's spent chasing the next experience has kept her from enjoying anything. At this point in the book, I find myself wondering if Gilbert wants to be there at all. Perhaps going to an Ashram was the thing she thought she should do, not what she wanted to do. I sure as hell wouldn't.
What I really love about "Eat, Pray, Love" is that it's all about asking the simple question, "what do I want," a question that would have come in handy in Australia and numerous other times in my life. It's so hard for some people, including me, and it really shouldn't be. I think that when you can honestly answer that question ("No. I don't want to go to that discussion on post-modernism, even though I realize that I should be interested in it and it would make me a lot cooler in your eyes. Really, I just want to watch back-to-back episodes of "Scrubs") you're well on your way to realizing your own identity and being ok with whoever that person is.

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MelissaS added it

02/08/08

Read in January, 2007

WHY? I cringe to think why so many women want to feel that this was a true spiritual journey. It was a pre-paid journey. The woman starts off with telling us over and over about how painful her divorce was, however she dismisses how it ever came to be that way. Leaving her audience only to guess it was so horrible she had to leave and find herself.
When asked in an interview if dumping her husband and pushing off wasn’t selfish, here is what Ms. Gilbert had to say:
"What is it about th...more WHY? I cringe to think why so many women want to feel that this was a true spiritual journey. It was a pre-paid journey. The woman starts off with telling us over and over about how painful her divorce was, however she dismisses how it ever came to be that way. Leaving her audience only to guess it was so horrible she had to leave and find herself.
When asked in an interview if dumping her husband and pushing off wasn’t selfish, here is what Ms. Gilbert had to say:
"What is it about the American obsession with productivity and responsibility that makes it so difficult for us to allow ourselves a little time to solve the puzzle of our own lives, before it's too late?"
This statement alone tells so much. A responsibility towards a marriage and spouse is considered an unwanted "obsession" and one's own pursuit of happiness supercedes everything else? If a man decided to dump his wife and family to flee to the Himalayas to meditate we wouldn’t be calling it a spiritual journey...we would call it irresponsibility.
India: This when she got just a little too proud of herself. I grew so tired of her boasting about how all her decisions led to a higher plan of consciousness and a new appreciation for life and a new understanding of the universe at large.
And Bali was even worse. I was hoping the little old guy didn't remember her. Didn't that whole episode just turn out a little too cutely? And then she fell off her bike! She met her doctor friend, and bought her a house. And met an old guy, and then she did things to herself! And then she slept with the old guy. And of course she's better at that than any of us because she is now enlightened. And then she made a little rhyming couplet of a life in Australia, America, Bali, and Brazil. Double cringe.
Italy: The author's angst and shallow self-discovery and pretend real people met with the express purpose of reflecting what she would like to 'learn' (lessons that most of us will have learned far earlier in life before more interesting lessons presented themselves.)
To quote a phrase from the "Italy" section of this book, "cross the street" if you dare to even glance in a bookstore window and entertain a thought of buying this book. Elizabeth Gilbert has no ideas about life. Not only does she have nothing to teach, she has nothing to say. This book is so vicarious that it reveals a profound and deeply disturbing ignorance about the complexities of real life.
The author's observations about life are simplistic and her insights so embarrassingly undeveloped and unsophisticated that she comes across as a detached observer. There are very few passages in this book that reveal any real sense of transformation in her life. She never really seems to glean anything authentic or deeply affecting from any of her experiences. And because she has gained nothing, she has nothing to offer. The reader is frustrated and unable to connect with her on any level. This memoir not only lacks readability, it lacks any real humanity.
She is right when she says that she is not a traveler; she does not have the heart or spirit of a true traveler because she somehow remains deeply unaffected. She is merely a tourist, a spectator, barely scratching the surface of the lands she traverses, the people she encounters, and the experiences of what it means to be human. She fails to see the poverty that surrounds her, or maybe she sees it? She definitely never writes about it, maybe because it is not part of the road to any enlightenment.
In spite of her year long journey she is still unable to gain true insight or wisdom from her pain and struggles. There is no profoundness in her journey, whether it is personal or physical. This book is just a simple walk through a simple mind. She is not even a good enough writer to be able to cleverly disguise her childlike observations in beautifully crafted language. I would rather read the trail journals of a young backpacker any day. At least they are 'real.'
After reading the book, I wondered how it found its way to the bestseller list. I was perplexed by its popularity. So I did some research. As it turns out "Eat, Pray, Love" is an ideal industry example of how a publishing company can "create" a best seller from the printing of a trade paperback. In hard cover, this book only generated mediocre book sales in the year in was published. However, someone at Penguin adopted it as a "darling" and created a hard core campaign to sell the trade paperback.
Well when they said “here’s $200, 000. dollars Elizabeth, now go travel and don’t forget to eat, pray, and love – when you come back I will get you the best editor and we will both feel enlightened.” So shallow, I cringe. I cringe even more for the women that buy into such shallowness.
If you really want to live with intention, live your journey here and now. YOUR here and now.

This book gets Zero stars.
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Tonya rated it:

08/20/07

Read in August, 2007

Ok, I admit I still have about 30 pages to go, which I will get around to reading soon (need a break from the book though) and which I highly doubt will prompt me to change my 2-star rating. I know many people love this book for what I consider personal reasons, therefore I tread lightly so as to not come off as critical of people's personal opinions, rather, just the book itself.

First, I found the author not-so-likable. I've read other readers' reviews in which she was described as 'so ...more Ok, I admit I still have about 30 pages to go, which I will get around to reading soon (need a break from the book though) and which I highly doubt will prompt me to change my 2-star rating. I know many people love this book for what I consider personal reasons, therefore I tread lightly so as to not come off as critical of people's personal opinions, rather, just the book itself.

First, I found the author not-so-likable. I've read other readers' reviews in which she was described as 'so funny' and like 'a girl we'd all love to know' and have to tell you, I didn't feel the love. She came off to me as lofty, self-absorbed, and needy. I felt like she wanted to make herself a victim of her divorce and her depression. She was so vague about some aspects of the decline of her relationship with her ex-husband as well as with some details about the divorce, which led me to believe that she really did a number on him, but then she whined throughout the book about how HE was the one making the divorce so difficult. I don't mean to sound judgmental of how she coped with it, because I can't relate to that and it would be unfair of me, but I just couldn't help but feel that she kind of bashed the ex a little when she was seemingly the majority of the reason for their split. Plus, she acted like she is the only person in the world to suffer through a divorce, yet she was "totally in love" with another man less than a month after she realized she wanted out of her marriage (and her account isn't clear as to how long after her realization she actually got the divorce-ball rolling so I can't help but assume she was unfaithul.) So it was hard to have sympathy for her when she got hysterical over the ex disagreeing about settlement details. Um, I would think that <i>happens<i> when you blindside your spouse with a divorce request. Not saying it's right, just saying that's life.

Secondly, in her search of spirituality, I couldn't help but find some of it a little far-fetched. And could she have drawn out her stay at the Ashram in India any longer or with more mind-numbing, snooooze-inducing detail?? I found myself skipping entire paragraphs at a time, and not just because I was in a bit of a hurry to read the book before book club... but because she bored the hell out of me. My favorite part of India, ironically, was Richard From Texas. So I suppose that just sums up for us what I got out of the India section.

But I won't leave us all on a totally negative note. I enjoyed parts of the book, some of them thoroughly. I loved her friends, for instance, and am perplexed at how I find the author so unlikable but somehow she has such cool people in her life? And she was SOMETIMES funny with little sarcastic bits that caught me off guard and made me laugh aloud. When she wasn't being overly wordy, I loved reading her descriptions of Italy, India, and most especially Indonesia. And, of course, who didn't drool over her description of that pizza in Naples? YUM. I read that part twice :-)~ ...less

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Bobbi rated it:

01/23/08

I wish that I could give this book 2 reviews.

In the first one, I'd be generous and I'd say that Elizabeth Gilbert has written an engaging memoir about some interesting people and places and told us a lot of funny stories.

In the second review, I'd say that she is a selfish, tiresome woman who was paid a massive advance to go and have some once-in-a-lifetime adventures so she could write a book about them, and so she respo...more I wish that I could give this book 2 reviews.

In the first one, I'd be generous and I'd say that Elizabeth Gilbert has written an engaging memoir about some interesting people and places and told us a lot of funny stories.

In the second review, I'd say that she is a selfish, tiresome woman who was paid a massive advance to go and have some once-in-a-lifetime adventures so she could write a book about them, and so she responded by wasting much of the book whining about her ex-boyfriend. TDon't'cha know, the one whom, as she repeatedly explains, she dumped/rebounded from her Perfectly Good Husband for. (ungrammatical, I know, but you get the point.) Well, that wouldn't be entirely true. She also whines a great deal about the ex-husband (who sounds like he was patient until he couldn't take any more). And she alludes repeatedly to her own Amazing Hotness, thinness, and General Intellectual Superiority. As I've already said, tiresome.

It's fitting that Gilbert chose three countries that all start with her favorite subject: I. SPOILER ALERT: In the end, after eating her way across Italy and learning to speak pretty decent Italian, spending four months in an ashram on a incredibly self-centered search for the spiritual equivalent of an orgasm, and eventually finding a new man in Bali, she's All Better. So much for a liberated woman traveling alone and seeking spiritual enlightenment. Speaking of spiritual enlightenment, she also goes On and On To A Tiresome Degree about how she's really a Yankee intellectual, and when she talks about God, please don't think that she means God-in-any-real-God-kind-of-way, because That's Just Not Done by Yankee intellectuals like herself. Especially ones who are, as she keeps reminding us she is, Amazingly Hot, thin, and Generally Intellectually Superior.

Incidentally, I was in India during the reading of this book, and I was particularly struck by her general obliviousness to the poverty in India, not to mention how, interesting, warm, resilient, and curious about life the people are. Then again, she didn't leave the ashram much, because, in the words of Richard from Texas (a MUCH more interesting-sounding person she meets in the ashram), "the only thing it's safe to touch in India is yourself." It sounds to this reader like, in between whining about her terrific life, weaning herself off antidepressants, and contemplating her own Amazing Hotness (and thinness and smartness), she has pretty much lived by that principle everywhere.

In a word, or two, Big Whoop....less

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Holly rated it:

05/28/08

Read in February, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I have copied this from a blog I wrote a few weeks ago:

I've recently given in. I normally don't go for the Oprah-style self-help mumbo-jumbo. However, the hype surrounding "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert was just too frenzied to ignore. So I gave in and read the book. "Eat, Pray, Love" is about "one woman's search for everything across Italy, India" and blah, blah, blah, do we really care?

"Liz" starts out in the first chapter by making me sm...more I have copied this from a blog I wrote a few weeks ago:

I've recently given in. I normally don't go for the Oprah-style self-help mumbo-jumbo. However, the hype surrounding "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert was just too frenzied to ignore. So I gave in and read the book. "Eat, Pray, Love" is about "one woman's search for everything across Italy, India" and blah, blah, blah, do we really care?

"Liz" starts out in the first chapter by making me smirk. She is sitting across from a real Italian Stallion at a table in a cafe in Rome, and contemplating sleeping with him. Then it occurs to her that at that point in her life (her mid-30s I might add), that it may not be wise to try to get over another man by getting involved with a new one. Is it just me, or am I the only one who thinks that one should already know that? If this is supposed to be profound, she's really missing the mark.

Before this journey Liz embarks on, she has just divorced her husband who basically took her for everything she had. She had been living with a man named David with whom she'd been having an extramarital affair and this relationship wasn't working either but she was still pining away for him. Basically she's a serial monogamist with attachment disorder. So Liz decides to undertake a "spiritual journey" as well as a geographical one, all the while planning and being paid to write this book about it. She'd been able to take this journey of hers because of the advance she'd acquired in preparation for this book. Sound fishy already?

The book is divided up into sections, hence the title "Eat, Pray, Love". The "Eat" section is where newly divorced Liz moves from New York to Italy to further her study of the Italian language and to eat carbs with wild abandon. Sounds good, but she spends most of her four months there moping around and using food as a crutch to help her deal with her depression. She meets some nice people and eats a lot. Gluttony is not becoming. Move on to section two.

Section two is the "Pray" section. She moves to an ashram in India for four months so that she can meditate. This is the part where we're supposed to think that Liz is just "oh so spiritual" because she meditates. She whines on about how hard it is for her at first to meditate because of her emotional baggage and the only saving grace is a Texan named Richard who won't let her mope around. Richard is like her own personal gadfly, never letting her just coast along and settle for her misery. One thing that Richard said to her when she was whining about missing David was that soul mates are not supposed to be forever. That they're designed to essentially come into your life, show you parts of yourself that you never knew existed and then move on. I have felt that way as well, and it's something that I truly believe in so I could identify with that.

So Liz eventually settles down into meditating and then tries to explain to us how she has become enlightened in India. From a Buddhist perspective, if you notice your own enlightenment, that ain't it. Sorry, Liz. You're not a Buddha. The sensation she was trying to describe is familiar to me, and I've also read about a lot of other people who have described it that way, but to actually hint that you've attained enlightenment at the end of four months of ashram living is way off the mark. Perhaps I'm just being too cynical, but even so I just love the way that life comes along and kicks you in the ass as soon as you think you've got things figured out. It doesn't let you start to feel smug, which is the way this book felt to me. A journey across Italy, India and Bali where nothing really happens but you somehow feel the sense of entitlement enough to become smug.

Next we move on to Bali, where Liz had visited before. This is where she's supposed to find a balance between earthly pleasure and spirituality. Liz meets up with an old medicine man that she'd met on her previous trip who'd told her that she was going to come back and live with his family for four months. For some reason it had never occurred to her that me might have said that to nearly every Westerner he'd met. On arriving the medicine man has no recollection of her at first, but explains it away as if it's just because she looks like an entirely new woman. This is supposed to make us feel that yes, she has had a wonderful transformation due to her spiritual journey. See how that works?

I actually liked a lot of the section on Bali, because there were other interesting and more developed characters in the book and I didn't have to be all alone with Liz for extended periods of time while I was reading. This is of course where Liz meets "The Great Love of Her Life". Because a self-help book written by a woman and for women can't end until the female heroine has met "The Great Love of Her Life". Which of course she can only meet after learning to love herself.

I know that this book is supposed to be autobiographical and that she is actually still involved with this man. However, the book could have ended just as well without implying that to really figure your life out, your place in the universe and to be emotionally healthy, that you need to find a man in the end. This idea that "real love", this mature, romantic love can only be achieved after you've worked out your own personal demons and after you've learned to love yourself is just trite. It is insulting to the intellect of every female alive to have the outcome of every volume of "chick lit" end with a great romantic love story. Real life is not reflective of that ideal, and I wonder how much of this "autobiography" was embellished to adhere to that formula; how much of the story was omitted because it didn't fit with the way the book flowed and how the story needed to transpire in order for this book to become "The Next Big Thing".

All in all I enjoyed the book, but sometimes I became smug in Liz's stead and laughed and pointed at her while shrieking, "You don't realise that yet?!" in my most infuriated inner monologue voice. It's worth a read because some of the advice that other people have given her is worthwhile but just because she was the one that wrote it down and published it, it doesn't mean that it's coming from her. I can't even get into how her privileged life has allowed her to take an entire year off from working or living in the real world in order to turn her life around in the first place. Or how misleading it is to her devout followers, The Oprahites who take her word as gospel and memorise passages from this book as they all wait around for "The Great Love of Their Lives" to materialise now that they've been saved by proxy through Gilbert's experience. Eat, pray, gag.

Perhaps this book is above me because I'm young. Perhaps it's because I'm not divorced. Maybe I'm too cynical and Elizabeth Gilbert is a great mystic, after all. Excuses aside, I still think I'm going to wait around for life to kick Liz on the arse and remind her that she's not finished yet; that she really doesn't have things all figured out into nice little packages. The universe will right itself on its own, after all. It always does....less

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Maria rated it:

03/08/08

Read in February, 2008

Don't bother with this book.

It took me nearly a year to finish it. I was so disgusted by the writer's apparent lack of awareness of her own privilege, her trite observations, and the unbelievably shallow way in which she represents a journey initiated by grief, that I initially couldn't bear to read beyond Italy. Like others who have written here, I made myself pick the book up again because so many people have raved about it, and I made myself finish it, hoping all the whil...more Don't bother with this book.

It took me nearly a year to finish it. I was so disgusted by the writer's apparent lack of awareness of her own privilege, her trite observations, and the unbelievably shallow way in which she represents a journey initiated by grief, that I initially couldn't bear to read beyond Italy. Like others who have written here, I made myself pick the book up again because so many people have raved about it, and I made myself finish it, hoping all the while there would be some redemptive insight or at least some small kernel of originality or wisdom. I was sorely disappointed. Liz is so obsessed with male attention throughout the book (in every section, she expounds in great detail on her flirtations with men, many of whom seem to "take care of her" or compliment her on her wit, beauty, or charm), that it makes her self-described quest to learn to be alone seem absurd and farcical. She does not have a feminist bone in her body; shocking for a woman who is purportedly on a quest for self-discovery after what she describes as a "devastaing divorce." She seems to have absolutely no capacity for self-awareness or reflection in this regard, and her superficial treatment of this and other aspects of her psyche bored me to tears. Basically, this memoir accounts her flirting her way across the globe into a new relationship, with little to no growth in self awareness that I can perceive. Even in India, her purported time of inward reflection, she attaches her herself to the likes of Richard from Texas, who seems a cross between a father figure and object of flirtation. Ultimately, she falls in love with a man much older than she, who seems to dote on her in quite a paternalistic way. When she spends pages talking about her bladder infection from too much sex, I have to question what her intentions are in writing about this? Why do we need to know about her bladder infection? What does it add to our understanding of her quest? To me, it says only, "Look! I'm desirable!" Not so interesting.

Additionally, her brand of spirituality certainly does not come close to transcending the fashionable Western obsession with all things Eastern, particularly Buddhism and the ashram culture. That a Westerner could go to India on her spiritual quest and have absolutely no awareness of 1) her gross appropriation of another culture's religion, and 2) the abject poverty that surrounds her, is inexusable. She oozes privilege at every turn, and that privilege remains unacknowledged and unexamined.

I was willing to look past my initial reaction that the end of a relationship is not, in the grand scheme of things, "that bad;" everyone's suffering certainly has its own validity. However, I was unable to muster much empathy for Elizabeth Gilbert despite my attempts to overcome my disgust at her shallow preoccupation.

Ultimately, this woman had nothing to teach me (other than that I should trust my own instincts to abandon a book when I have such a strong reaction of dislike from page one). I am sorry I spent the time and energy trying to finish it. I happened to read somewhere that she has recently bought a church in Manhattan which she is converting into her personal living space. And this is enlightenment? I am sickened that Paramount has bought the rights to the book for a motion picture, and that she stands to make even more money than she already has on this insipid memoir. ...less

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Cam rated it:

07/05/07

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: people with a prevailing wanderlust or a penchant for a smarter chick read

I had a very love/give-me-a-break relationship with this book, so I had to give it a week or so before writing a review to let it settle. I began the book on an optimistic note, then quickly became annoyed with the long, rambling chapters justifying the author's use of the word "God" and how OTHER words for "God" are neither better nor worse, more nor less accurate, than "God" but this author feels a connection with the word "God" so she's going to use it ...more I had a very love/give-me-a-break relationship with this book, so I had to give it a week or so before writing a review to let it settle. I began the book on an optimistic note, then quickly became annoyed with the long, rambling chapters justifying the author's use of the word "God" and how OTHER words for "God" are neither better nor worse, more nor less accurate, than "God" but this author feels a connection with the word "God" so she's going to use it here but REALLY, there are LOTS of ways to express the concept, etc. etc. etc.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the Italy section began, and my annoyance quickly turned into enjoyment; in fact, during this section, I couldn't put the book down. I found the author's honesty endearing and her handling of telling the story of her divorce to be very tasteful (she declines to go into much detail or to take cheap swipes at her ex-husband--a choice that becomes even more obviously conscious as the book goes on and the reader realizes that bold honesty is not something this author shies away from).

The India section, though it had its bright moments and colorful personalities (Richard from Texas was one of my favorite people in the book), was sluggish, especially during long examinations of the author's difficulty with meditating, her relationship with God, and other highly personal experiences that, frankly, I applaud her for living so fully and experiencing so honestly, but don't feel they are really relevant or all that interesting to anyone else. They're the stuff of personal journals, not dinner-table conversation. The best example of this was a chapter in which the author abruptly reveals that she traveled through her meditative vortex and encountered God. There's no setting the stage or putting the experience into the context of the rest of the book, just several long pages describing the ways she couldn't possibly describe it. Sections like this, to me, only alienate the reader.

The last section, set in Bali, did much to humanize her after those esoteric meditations on...meditation. I loved that the reader could really feel that she was finally transcending this deeply inward, wounded stage of her life and coming out onto the other side. Her writing shed much of its cumbersome devotion to detail, and we began to hear from her not every day or every moment, but periodically, to give us an update on where she'd been and what she'd been doing. It felt to me that she was finally living her life instead of just writing about it.

After a few days of processing the book, what stood out for me was the author's truly courageous willingness to write in an intensely personal style and be completely honest about herself. There were points when her honesty made me feel a bit uncomfortable--the type of uncomfortable where you wonder, "Did she mean to tell us that??" But in the end, I admired that the book was so unapologetically truthful--really a deeply felt, no-holds-barred account of one person's struggle to live through the joys and devastations that we all experience. It's not often that an author lets her readers in so completely, and though it didn't always connect for me, I appreciated that. ...less

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Fiona added it

04/08/08

This is the review I put on my blog - it's basically a rant about how this bokk made me ashamed to be a woman.

Eat Play Love is the monologue of a neurotic american princess ("Liz") in her mid thirties. The first few chapters background the rest of the book, a confessional that tells how she came to find her 8 year marriage distasteful, realised she wasn't keen on the next 'logical' step which is apparently to fill her expansive apartment with children, and plunges into an impotent de...more

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Terry rated it:

01/06/08

bookshelves: non-fiction

Gilbert points out that each country she visits begins with "I", so her journey is really a journey to the self, blah blah blah. But the whiff of narcissism in the "I I I" pattern is no whiff. It's a hurricane. Who brings copies of her OWN BOOKS to her psychiatrist, 'cause she wants him to HELP her, but not ruin her book-writing ability, 'cause, you know, she's special that way? Oh, well... I hope no one hates me for reading an Oprah-endorsed book. I had reservations about th...more

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Zinta rated it:

(review of isbn 0670034711)

01/05/09

Read in July, 2006

I waited, and waited, in ever such impatient patience, until the duct-taped box from my daughter arrived. It was one box among many, but this particular box, she had promised, would have within it her very best and most loved books, and among those -- Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" that I had been longing to read. All of these boxes were arriving at my door because my daughter was taking wing on a journey like none before, and she is, for her 26 years, well traveled even when me...more I waited, and waited, in ever such impatient patience, until the duct-taped box from my daughter arrived. It was one box among many, but this particular box, she had promised, would have within it her very best and most loved books, and among those -- Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" that I had been longing to read. All of these boxes were arriving at my door because my daughter was taking wing on a journey like none before, and she is, for her 26 years, well traveled even when measured against adults thrice her age. It was a journey to complete her Master's degree, yes, but more than that. It was a journey to fulfill a young woman's (inherited from her mother) wanderlust, as well as a study abroad, as well as a spiritual journey, as well a journey of healing after a painful breakup of a relationship back home.

Indeed, how like Gilbert's story! Almost as if the two women, never having met, have moved on parallel lines. Perhaps that is why Gilbert's story so appeals. If we haven't traveled it ourselves in our physical bodies, surely we have traveled it in our hearts and minds. Away from pain, towards enlightenment. Away from disappointments and varied betrayals, toward renewed, or even new, wholeness. Away from what was and full flung into what is and what will be.

While our individual journeys in life may vary in detail, and no doubt rather unimportant detail, Gilbert touches so very many of her readers because in her honest, open, sincere, and often deliciously hilarious and hilariously delicious account, she speaks for many, many, many of us. Even if some of us stay in place to find our healing and learn our life lessons, minds and hearts travel freely. We can find our spiritual awakenings in an Indian Ashram, as she does, or we can find it standing in our own shower on a Monday morning, facing another work week in our accustomed routines.

Gilbert's journey takes her first to Italy, where she heals her body, mostly through the pleasures of food; then to India, where for months she meditates and prays; finally to Bali, Indonesia, where she completes her healing and finds new love when she was sure she never again would. She takes us, her readers, along with a story that pulls us along jumping and skipping and running and gasping, not missing a moment, eating and praying and loving right along with her.

I enjoyed the sections my daughter had highlighted; they might have been mine. My girl is heading to Europe, and her journey will not be so different, in pursuit of learning, and understanding, and healing her own broken heart. I have no doubt that she will return changed forever, and in a most wondrous way. Travel does that to us. The meeting with new cultures and peoples, challenging our own comfort zones, testing our own ideas of what life means and how we fit into it.

I eagerly rush to read more of Gilbert's work. She knows how to translate experience into wonderful words, and for one reason above all -- her courage to write honestly about an honest effort to live life well.

Most highly and enthusiastically recommended. ...less

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Jen rated it:

02/22/08

Read in November, 2007

Wow. I just gave Eat, Pray, Love a tearful send-off. And now I will relate to you the reasons why.

The book has helped me come to terms with the fact that this whole healing process is taking so long, longer than any of my friends expected I think, and that it's not over. But even so, it's OK. I can still live my life and do new things and make new friends and still work through it. I'm not cheating anyone by giving them what I've got right now, as opposed to the miracle woman that I think I ...more

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(0v0) rated it:

09/22/07

recommends it for: white bourgeois american female malcontents

What I'm about to say must be wrong, because I couldn't get through this book. I tried. And I failed. So: I have NO BUSINESS WRITING THIS. Don't read it.

A cousin recommended EPL and I thought it would teach me something about the book market. My secret boyfriend at the public library was horrified I checked it out, given his ACLU-offensive intimacy with my record and tastes; and yes, like others, I was embarrassed to have EPL in my possession.

Because:

What IS this MOVEMENT of lily-whi...more

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Dini rated it:

(review of isbn 0747589356)

04/07/08

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Dini by: Books I Want To Talk About group

When I first heard the premise of Eat, Pray, Love — a woman's journey after a series of personal hardships to find peace and happiness across three countries — I thought it was going to be a solemn retelling of the pilgrimage-like voyage in the likes of Paulo Coelho. Of course I was wrong.

Elizabeth Gilbert tells an honest story (which starts with the quote "Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth") of her emotional and psychological breakdown after a harrowing di...more

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

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