Eat, Pray, Love

So I'm in the second book and I need to stop, though interesting it's also boring and slightly depressing

Though the author seems a bit arrogant when explaining obfuscation of names in the forward (she expects her book to be that famous?) I was totally taken in by her charm and her journey from divorce-induced depression through and exploration of pleasure, devotion and love represented by sojourns in Italy, India and Bali. I took vicarious pleasure in her fabulous meals, intense meditation and search for divinity at her guru's ashram and observations of beauty and love in Bali. Gilbert also reads the audio book and she does it well. It's been one of the most soothing put me to sleep books in a while, I'm a little sorry I rushed through to the end this morning...

I enjoyed the first section on Italy. It was an interesting story and fun to read. The section about India was more spiritual, and also interesting. It took me longer to read this section, because I felt like I was reading more slowly in order to absorb it all. The Indonesia section wasn't as good as the first two. But overall, I enjoyed the book.

This book is dumb and the author annoyed me. So of course it's a fantastic commercial success and has been made into a movie starring Julia Roberts. That's how I roll.

Here is a woman who had everything: Loving husband, beautiful house, fabulous career....but she didn't have GUSTO. So, she abandons everything and gorges in Italy, purges in Bali, and preys upon some other poor sod. Self-absorbed balderdash.

Not only did I not like this book, I pretty much hated it. This is the first book I've finished that I hated. Most books I am not enjoying I stop reading. I had HOPED the author would have had significant growth.
My first thoughts on this book were:
I feel like putting duct tape over this self-absorbed whiny, you know what. Please tell me it gets better; that she "evolves" and becomes a better human being. Also, that the title of the book should have been, Me, Me and More of Me.

What can I write that others have not? Probably not much, if anything. I will touch on the positive aspects first: two pages about a teen-age girl in India and her minimal growth in Bali, (but then she threw it down the toilet, when she didn't keep her promise to herself.) AND the fact she got of medication. (that is huge!)

At the end though she gives far TMI that turns into soft porn. I can say I finished it and I hated it from the beginning and had high hopes in Bali only to be thrown against the coral she mentioned on the beaches of Bali.

Now, what to do with the book....???? Shall I shred each and every page and recycle it in the compost? or shall I save it for fire starter in the winter? Decisions, decisions.

Why was this book so popular?

What do you do if you have everything you “should” want and are still unhappy? In Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert shares her story of leaving it all – a promising career, a comfortable home, and even her marriage – to travel the world in search of happiness. Like Cecilia Ahearn, I expected Elizabeth Gilbert to be too “girly” or emotional of an author for me and was pleasantly surprised. Of course, the book includes many emotional topics, such as the author’s agonizing divorce proceedings, but she describes everything in a relatable, humorous way. She comes across as very down-to-earth and comfortable laughing at herself and never became too angsty.The people described in the book are just priceless. They’re so unique and so interesting that it shocked me in the middle of the book to remember they were real. They just make for such a good story that it’s hard to believe they weren’t invented expressly for the purpose of being in the book. Something others have pointed out correctly is that this isn’t really a travel memoir, because the focus is these characters not the locations. You get a little bit of a feel for the culture of each place the author stays, but the physical journey is definitely secondary to the emotional journey the author experienced.The organization of the book was a tiny bit contrived and the division of the author’s time in each country into an equal number of stories sometimes made the pacing uneven. I’d just be getting into the plot connecting the chapters and suddenly I’d reach a section where the chapters were individual stories. Despite the occasional lack of flow, I was hooked on this one. The short chapters made it easy to indulge my desire to find out what happened next by reading just one more chapter. And then one more. And then another, late into the night.Like the other characters, the author seemed like too good of a protagonist not to have been made up for that express purpose. She reminded me of Meg Cabot’s characters, managing to be both fun and relatable enough to make me think “I could be friends with her”. At the end of the day, that reputability and the character driven narrative were what drove my late-night reading binges. Highly recommended.

This was my third attempt at Eat, Pray, Love (book, movie, audiobook) and I am really just happy I finished it this time. That said, I enjoyed it. The hardest part for me to get through was Italy and maybe it's just because I would never *do* that-- which I feel is especially true after hearing her tales of India and Indonesia. Regardless, I loved listening to Elizabeth Gilbert tell her own story, laughing along with her jokes, and loving her friends. While I do not feel like I was truly on the journey of self-discovery with her, I do feel like I traveled the world a little bit.

As with most critically acclaimed books, I find myself not liking it as much as the critics do. The author's worldview is so different than my own. I fell as if she's been led astray by false prophets and it made it doubly hard for me to read it.

Liz Gilbert's life was a mess. She wanted a divorce, she fought off and on with her lover and she just wanted to go away. And go away she did to the three I's. Italy, India and Indonesia. She found food and friends in Italy. She found the love of God in an Ashram in India and she found herself in Bali, Indonesia.Liz's brave narrative is humorous and very informative. I found her descriptions of various meditations and the histories of the countries she visited to be very interesting. The people she met on her journey are friends for life and gave her very wise advice. I envy her guts to take off to the unknown and spend a year abroad. I wish I had the means to do that myself.A good summer read.

I had heard so many great things about this book over the past few years, but I never had a chance to read it, or even see the movie. When I found a copy at my local library book sale, I had to pick it up. It's as though it was calling me. (Or, perhaps, some greater power knew that I would need this book in the near future and put it out specifically for me to discover.)Let me start out by saying that I am not necessarily a religious person, so, in general, quests to find God are not usually my cup of tea. However, that being said, I appreciated Gilbert's way of including her own beliefs in a way that didn't feel as though it was being forced down your throat. ("Just swallow Jesus into your heart!!") Instead, she left the idea of a greater power open to interpretation.Her autobiographical writing style is definitely more of a fit for me than her other book that I read. It was witty and light enough to make it a fun to read. Even though I wasn't super into the first part of the book (it started to feel like The Signature of All Things all over again), I was able to get through it easily enough and move on to the parts that really captured my interest. I also really liked how she linked the short chapters to meditation beads, giving it a harmonizing connection to her dedication to the practice.Each part of Gilbert's adventure was full of surprise, whimsy, and enlightenment as she educates her readers on the cultures of three countries (but, educational in a good way; like Bill Nye). The people she met along her journey were enthralling, beautiful, and eccentric. It was illuminating to see the humanity across the world and how relationships can span cultures because we're not that different.I will say, I am a bit jealous that she got to spend so much time learning meditation in an Ashram in India. It reminded me of the Bill Bryson book I finished a few weeks ago where I was a bit peeved of the upper-class privilege to be able to just up and leave the monotony of normal life for such a period of time. However, I don't want to be too judgmental since a similar trip is on my bucket list, and I hope to one day have that same privilege.Overall, this was an absolute delight that has inspired me to get back to my meditation practice...while eating lots of pasta.

I enjoyed the last two thirds of this book more than the first third. The beginning dealt with how miserable she was over her failing marriage and also how miserable she was over her failing marriage and her boyfriend who sometimes pulled away from her. Although I love languages, the description of her journey to Italy to learn Italian was not that interesting. A lot of eating and sight seeing, which I am sure is great when you are doing it, but not so much fun to read about. Where the book became good, in my opinion, is when she traveled to India and then to Bali. Although it is filled with a lot of references to communicating with God, which may or may not be your thing, she really began to describe, in very beautiful terms, what she was seeking from life. Gilbert is a beautiful writer and that showed in the last part of the book. Overall, I'm glad I read it but you have to be patient to get to the thoughtful parts.

Elizabeth Gilbert went through a messy divorce and needed to get away, so she traveled for one year. She went to Italy, India and Indonesia, where in each place, she focused on something different to help her heal. In Italy, her focus was on pleasure; in India, it was all about prayer and meditation; in Indonesia, it was about balance and happiness. Most people either seem to love or hate this book. I fall right in the middle, as I could give a completely different rating to each section! I really liked the section on Italy and if that was the entire book, it would have been 4 stars. Was quite bored with the section on India (I am also not the least bit religious, so...), wanted it to end, and would have given it 2 stars. The section on Indonesia, was good - not as good as Italy, though, so it gets 3 stars. So, average it all out, and even though most people either loved or hated it, I'm in the middle at 3 stars... In Italy and Indonesia, I really enjoyed reading about all the people she met.

This was my third attempt at Eat, Pray, Love (book, movie, audiobook) and I am really just happy I finished it this time. That said, I enjoyed it. The hardest part for me to get through was Italy and maybe it's just because I would never *do* that-- which I feel is especially true after hearing her tales of India and Indonesia. Regardless, I loved listening to Elizabeth Gilbert tell her own story, laughing along with her jokes, and loving her friends. While I do not feel like I was truly on the journey of self-discovery with her, I do feel like I traveled the world a little bit.

Tedious to be sure.....

Many many women (most, I have met...myself included) have suffered some type of separation, divorce, unhappiness, depression....and have gotten over it via "spiritual awakening", good psychological help, or Louise Hay/Marianne Williamson/Dalai Lama.

That Elizabeth Gilbert was fortunate enough to leave it all behind and travel to India, Indonesia & Italy in order to "find herself", makes her one of the fortunate few. In fact what really got me was her whine about paying for a fabulous house that her husband refused to sell...while not being able to afford the apartment she was renting....that spoke volumes to me.

This book held no great revelations for me and I found it boring.

I have never read Eat, Pray, Love before and I read it this time for a school assignment on inspirational books. I like how Elizabeth writes about her experiences and acknowledges that this was the right path for her and she was able to afford to do it, she does not preach about her choices in traveling or religion, but just tells them how it was for her. I give the book 3 stars because some parts, especially the parts where she talks to god or has awakenings, they come off over-exaggerated and just downright weird. I also would of liked her to explore more into the history of the areas she visited and more about what appealed her to yoga in the first place that inspired her to go to India. I enjoyed the book for the travel and finding herself parts and can see why inspired so many people.

My attention flagged as soon as the Eating part was over.

I decided to give Eat, Pray, Love a try after reading and liking Big Magic. As one does with any book so much in the public eye, I suppose I gathered a certain impression of how Eat, Pray, Love had been received by others, and I was aware of a certain negative backlash-y feeling that hung around it. Perhaps this is partly what kept me from having a reason to read it for so long.But every time I've happened to hear Gilbert speak, on this podcast episode, or that TED talk, I've been impressed with what she had to say, and how she said it. This held true in Big Magic, where she discusses the creative process, and now that I've read Eat, Pray, Love, I can say I'm glad I gave it a chance, too.Here are the things I particularly liked, in probably a jumbled-up order:This book is a memoir, probably more specifically a travel memoir, but it's not exactly an autobiography. Yes, Gilbert tells about her life, but she is a storyteller, and she is able to create a compelling narrative from the raw material of her experience.She is also really good at describing what's going on. It could be an external event, like getting pizza in Napoli with a friend, or something internal, like her grappling with depression and loneliness. No matter what it is, she has thought deeply about it, and describes it in a way that brings you right there. Her style is direct and personal, and while I'm not a professional writer, I suspect that the positive impressions I get from her style are due to solid technique.If Gilbert is taking me along on this travel journey, to places both literal and figurative, I appreciate that she commits to it completely. If she hadn't so fully given herself over to the meditation regimen at the Ashram in India, and to the search for mental and emotional healing, then I would never be able to see through her eyes where that has taken her. In short, there wouldn't really be a story. I love attending my local Rec center yoga class once every few weeks, and when I can relate that to an immersive Ashram retreat, and see in detail just how far removed those experiences are, then even in just that small way my understanding has broadened immensely.Ditto for Italy and Bali. These are all places I've never been, and I'm probably not alone in feelings that run along the lines of "Oh, I could never do that," "I can't afford..." "I'll probably never..." etc. But even if I never do spend months abroad in the vacation spot of my choice, I'm glad to be able to live it through others' words. It's also not just about the pasta and the meditation. It's not only the tropical, exotic setting. The journey she describes is also one of feelings and relationships, and every person can find something to relate to there, world travelers or no. When you have demons to deal with, whether it's a failed marriage, loneliness, grief, depression, or whatever, the way you think about it can go a long way towards healing. I'm not saying the Think System is the answer to everything, but when you learn new ways of thinking about things, it can make a world of difference. So I appreciated reading about Gilbert's own struggle, and how she ultimately was able to reach a place of peace and balance.I enjoyed this book, but from my friends I have heard possibly more negative reactions than positive. Most of them seem to hover around the idea of selfishness. So I'm curious what others think. I'm not sure I can pass a verdict of Selfishness on Liz Gilbert based on this book, or that selfishness in an artist would even be grounds to discount her art. But I like a book that provokes discussion, so: discuss.

Great humor.

Loved it! Inspiring read.

beautiful.

Not a terrible read, but full of privileged angst that was difficult to feel sympathy for.

Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir 'Eat,Pray,Love.' takes you on a physical and spiritual journey across three countries and explores the deep meaning of devotion and balance. It is a funny, insightful story recounting the tale of one individual and her pursuit of happiness that is absent in her life. Gilbert uses humour and a certain structure to tell us about this period of her life.I would recommend the book to a mature audience and someone who needs some inspiration in their life. Rating: 4/5

Elizabeth's journey makes me want to go on one of my own! How wonderful to travel and just live. I wish I could afford it!

First impress about this book,I feel there just a woman has a boring life, she wanted to change, then I realized some women around me, they have similar experiences when they got married after couple of years, life become stable, and also people getting real mature, they know what kind of life they wanted to have, perhaps the time already so late, so some people decided to keep their life, someone like the author choose to change.Other part, I am really enjoy her writing style, she put many details about feelings,emotional,and she is brave to looking her life, she traveled some countries, pray, wait, and love.

When this book first came out years ago - my interest was really peaked. And then before I had a chance to read it it became a phenomenon. In order to not have unrealistically high expectations - I put reading it off for a while. Then Julia Roberts was in the movie. I don't like Julia Roberts - and I tried watching the first 10 minutes and hated it. I waited a few years and finally decided to read it for myself.At first I really enjoyed it. The Italy part was fun to read for the most part. I liked the author's sense of abandon and fearlessness in meeting people and becoming familiar with her surroundings.What I didn't like from the very first part is the indelicate way she talked about her failed marriage. These very personal disclosures didn't fuel my sympathy towards her but made me feel so sorry for her ex-husband because he had to deal with her airing all their marital issues in such an unflattering light that frankly sometimes felt vengeful to me. This thread that continued through the whole novel made me feel very uncomfortable and because of that it really stood in the way of me liking the author as the main character. As for the book itself - I enjoyed Italy the most - I found the introspection in India tedious and so self congratulatory.Bali was a bit better but without having affection for the protagonist - it fell flat for me.I really don't think I would recommend this book.

I don't understand all the hype this book received. I didn't necessarily dislike it, but I wouldn't read it again and I'm scratching my head as to why there was so much fuss made about it. I watched the movie too thinking it might clarify what my thick head didn't pick up in the book, but alas...

Pretentious, and too New Age for my taste. Not a book for travelers. Privileged tourists maybe.

-- I listened to Gilbert read her book aloud on 11 audio discs while driving to & from work. What a treat! It was like she was a passenger talking to me alone. Her voice is smooth & pleasant & speech is well-modulated. She assumes her characters' voices with appropriate accents & emotions. Short chapters make returning to audio book convenient next time. From her I learned some important lessons for the first time. For example love & power are only two reasons relationships fail or succeed. Her sister became wife & mother because roles are important whereas Elizabeth is more outgoing & enjoys nonfamilial company. When she talked about difficulty of being a single woman, in Bali particularly, she articulated my experience beautifully. Gilbert is contemplative & genuine. Yoga & meditation are tools she uses to examine her life. I don't begrudge her for consuming espresso in Rome or having a Brazilian lover. --

Surprisingly good! Didn't think I would like it, and yet I did. The author did a wonderful job of wrapping the gooey, romantic stuff with humour and the occasional bouts of self pity didn't throw me off either. Guess, I will give the movie a try too, my tolerance to Romantic movies is way higher than that for books - some of them, I have been known to enjoy too!3.5/5