Eat Pray Love

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

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What I liked: Parts of this book read like talking to a good friend. Parts were funny and honest and didn't feel contrived for plot or dramatic affect.

What I didn't like: Quite honestly, I felt a lot of things about this book were construed together too perfectly to be a "real" story. It wore me out and wore on and on at points when it just should have died. Who the hell gets to have a mental breakdown AND a happy ending? There were also chapters that I felt were created (history of rome 101, where gurus come from and Bali Realty for Dummies to name a few) just to fill out the numbers. They were boring and added no context to the story.

Final Thoughts: This book did not live up to the hype for me.

Published Date: February 2006

Synopsis: The celebrated author of The Last American Man creates an irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure and spiritual devotion.

By the time she turned thirty, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern, educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house in the country, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love and the complete eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be.

To recover from all of this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, left her loved ones behind and undertook a year-long journey around the world, all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the chronicle of that year. Gilbert's aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature, set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Italy, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, where, with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise Texan, she embarked on four months of austere spiritual exploration. Finally, in Indonesia, she sought her ultimate goal: balance—namely, how to somehow build a life of equilibrium between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. Looking for these answers on the island of Bali, she became the pupil of an elderly, ninth-generation medicine man and also fell in love in the very best way—unexpectedly.

A memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment. It is also about the adventures that can transpire when a woman stops trying to live in imitation of society's ideals. This is a story certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.

Recommended Reading
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert
One Day by David Nicholls
Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz
Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen [unabridged audiobook] [NOOKbook]