Book Review: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Title:  Eat Pray Love
Author:  Elizabeth Gilbert
Published:  2006
Author’s Website:  Elizabeth Gilbert’s Official Website

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Summary:

Eat Pray Love is a memoir.  In it, the author (Elizabeth) narrates about her consuming thoughts and life, as she visits Italy, India and Bali to seek the meaning of passion, spirituality and balance.

My View:

When I first started reading this book, the introduction sounded very familiar.  It reminded me very much of a movie that I had watched:  Under the Tuscan Sun starring Diane Lane and Sandra Oh.  (Incidently, the movie is also based on a  written memoir of the same name).  As in this book, the movie was also about a gloomy American writer, who was also going through the emotions of a turbulent divorce, and who had also decided to ‘take a break from it all’ by going to a foreign country, in which case was Tuscany-Italy.  Interesting, I thought.

As with most books, the initial chapters were very exciting.  After all, I was ‘getting to know’ the main character, in this case which was Elizabeth.  It was comforting to learn that she was as ordinary as anybody.  Just another woman going through life, I thought.  And this excited me.  I love reading about other people’s life and what they learn from going through it, and with the charming way that Elizabeth was writing, I thought I was going to fall in love with the book in no time.

But,…. I was wrong.  I wasn’t falling in love at all.  In fact, I actually started getting a little bored by the time we reached India.  Somehow, I felt as if the initial spark that lit up the book in the front-end, was beginning to diminish.  Where are you taking me, I kept asking Elizabeth silently in my mind.  Of course, there were moments of awe here and there.  But they seemed to be getting less frequent as I progressed.

By the time we were in Bali, it just felt as if I was being led by a leash.  It felt as if Elizabeth was writing the “who, what and where” in precise detail (of course from notes and journals that she must have kept through out her trip) and then editing in the emotional side of the events as an ‘after thought’.  Somewhere in the book, I had lost the Elizabeth that had initially grasped my interest and excitement. 

Recommendation:

In Australia, this book in on a Top 10 list.  So, I’m sure that it must be catering for some people’s taste.  But my personal thoughts are, if you are after a memoir that will inspire you to appreciate the little things in life and to learn from the world around us - this is not the one!

Review By Other Bloggers:

A-Kay of Lemon and Chillies >>>>  here.

Suman of Thoughts Unlimited >>>> here.

Laksh of Laksh Musing >>>> here.