Committed

Feb 21, 2010 La Petite Américaine rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: auto-bios-etc, sucked, rants

Well, I don't mean to be a hater, but ... let's get on with it, shall we?

I only mention Eat, Pray, Love because Committed picks up where that novel left off. While EPL gave us the candid story of a woman admitting her many faults and going on a soul-searching quest around the world to better herself, Committed is simply an expository essay written with a high-school freshman level of mediocrity. While it masquerades itself as a historical critique of marriage, it's really nothing more than a war...more Well, I don't mean to be a hater, but ... let's get on with it, shall we?

I only mention Eat, Pray, Love because Committed picks up where that novel left off. While EPL gave us the candid story of a woman admitting her many faults and going on a soul-searching quest around the world to better herself, Committed is simply an expository essay written with a high-school freshman level of mediocrity. While it masquerades itself as a historical critique of marriage, it's really nothing more than a warning/apology/disclaimer for the fact that Elizabeth Gilbert got married again and will likely be divorced again. Fine. I didn't expect that after one year of travel, a self-proclaimed serial monogamist who ended up right back where she started, to be somehow "changed." No, what bothers me are Gilbert's unnerving insecurities, which she wants you to believe are about marriage. Her insecurities are not about matrimony, they run much deeper and are much more irritating than that: she is insecure as all hell about love, most likely because she's clueless about it and unable to comprehend it. And when you're not upfront with your readers about what's really eating you, or are trying to mask who you really are, you come off as stupid, juvenile, self-centered and tacky.

Let's get some logistical stuff out of the way before I tear your ass a new one, no?

First, if you're going to write some sort of historical chronicle bashing marriage, I commend you. But can you list a few sources so that we readers don't happen to wonder if you're pulling all of this out of your ass? And do us all a favor and don't use Carol Gilligan -- who used an interview with one boy and one girl to make the claim that women are nurtures and men are practical -- to back up your points. Next, can you pay your editor a little more? I was so sick of reading the word "conservative" over and over that I was ready to scream -- I don't like the right that much, either, but if you can't find a Thesaurus or do some clever editing to use a different word, I'm going to sign up for the Republican party right now because you have me convinced that we "liberals" are morons. And one more thing ... you state repeatedly that marriage favors men over women. Sweetie. Life favors men. Get used to it. Work to make it change or shut up. Stupid.

Now, let's deal with some of the personal stuff from the novel. It seeps through here and there that Gilbert is anxious about her relationship. I would be, too. The guy is 17 years older than her, they have nothing in common, and he won't do anything she likes or enjoys. (Thank God there's a prenup.) Then she's too afraid to even take off for a few days of travel without him, because really, insert-1000-excuses-of-the-clingy-neurotic-type-here. Thank goodness, then, that Gilbert has assured us over and over again that she is in love for real this time, and that this is the most mature relationship of her life. After all, she says, it's not one of those childish relationships people have where they fall madly in love with a stranger while traveling abroad ... oh, wait. Grow up, Liz. Life is a crap shoot, it's scary, and you're never totally safe in anything. Get over yourself you juvenile dimwit.

Now, Gilbert likes us to think she's a modern feminist rebel of sorts. She is only able to accept marriage (or so she says -- I'm inclined to think in some secret part of herself she wanted marriage all along) by believing that it's an act of rebellion. Now, she's such a rebel that she cannot seem to fathom how in her own family history, women have given up careers and independence to marry and have children. How did her own grandmother give up everything when she married, only to look back and say it was the happiest time of her life? How could her own mother have given up a groundbreaking career at Planned Parenthood in the 1970's to stay home with the children and then have no regrets? It's called love, dear. People are not terrorized of being abandoned to the point of indecision like you obviously are. Life happens to people, especially when they fall in love and get married. Thus, they sacrifice and they move on. Figure it out you self-centered tool.

Of course, the rebel in Gilbert will beat over our heads a million times that she has chosen not to have children, a choice I wish more people would make, to be honest. Yet, I've never seen someone so subconsciously fucked up (and in denial) about that choice as I have in this book. Gilbert tells us divorce is more anxiety producing than the loss of a child. Um, NO. Then, around every corner is an observation of a pregnant woman or a reference to babies. Her previous failed marriage is a baby "dropped on its fuzzy head." Her lover is her "baby." New England cemeteries are filled with centuries-old tombstones of dead infants, and the dreams women give up by marrying are buried, like those dead infants, in a graveyard of the mind. Um, no, again, sweetie. You tacky, tacky loudmouth. (The baby stuff was so repetitive that when Gilbert states that she has no desire for children, I literally pulled a Senator Joe Wilson and shouted "YOU LIE!" at the book.)

My prediction is Gilbert will be one of those accidentally-on-purpose pregnant women who will claim she never wanted it, hates it, and then she'll go writing a 300-page meditation about motherhood. Good. At least she'd be less insecure about her love life, thus sparing us more of her whiny pseudo-feminist banter.

Sucked. REALLY SUCKED.
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Jan 10, 2010 Moira Russell rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: underwhelmed, 2010-50-new-books-challenge

Yeah, I broke down and bought this, mainly because it was 40% off at the local grocery store, partly because of this review: http://www.bookslut.com/girl_interrup.... I HATED EPL but I like reading about marriage, so, we'll see how this goes while I'm waiting for Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest to get here (apparently England is having blizzards).

-- This wasn't anywhere near as terrible as Eat Pray Love, which isn't saying much of anything at all since I detest that book completely. Gilbert's...more Yeah, I broke down and bought this, mainly because it was 40% off at the local grocery store, partly because of this review: http://www.bookslut.com/girl_interrup.... I HATED EPL but I like reading about marriage, so, we'll see how this goes while I'm waiting for Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest to get here (apparently England is having blizzards).

-- This wasn't anywhere near as terrible as Eat Pray Love, which isn't saying much of anything at all since I detest that book completely. Gilbert's introduction in which she talks about how she had no idea she was going to write a bestseller, has no idea how to write another one and had to just buckle down and write the book that was best for her was particularly offputting. (As they say in AA, when your life changes what happens is you get a better class of problems, but the difficulty of following up a book that has sold millions of copies seems like solid-gold mink-lined handcuffs. If nothing else, there are always pseudonyms....) The one interesting thing in the book, to me, is when she somewhat wryly says during the first stage of her career, she wrote 'like a man' writing about manly men doing manly things, and was able to make a living as a journalist and was nominated for some fairly big prizes, but didn't get much public attention. When she wrote 'as a woman' -- an intimate, confessional memoir about the worst personal crisis in her life -- she became rich and famous, even perhaps infamous, and was invited on Oprah at least twice. The very slight implication is perhaps that, while Gilbert is fully appreciative of her new wealth and influence and her role as modern secular psychospiritual lifestyle guru, she might, possibly, be just a little tired of her own persona herself.

As many reviewers by now have pointed out, Gilbert is at her worst when trying to breeze through great expository lumps and hunks of faked-up research, but writes affectingly of what marriage has meant for the women in her family, for good and for ill. "Felipe" is a particularly thin character, which is somewhat inevitable since she wants to at least partly protect his privacy, but I realized one reason the book irritated me so was apart from some good descriptions of her dread and terror when he's originally arrested at an airport for violating the terms of his visa, we don't hear much about the details of the predicament that is the reason for her writing the book in the first place. Instead, most of it is a lot of magazine-article-level generalizations about Western cultural history fleshed out with anecdotes from Gilbert's family and friends.. The main idea that marriage can be -- gasp! -- really subversive reminds me of the (I think it was) former punk rocker who declared that there was absolutely nothing more punk than buzzing your hair, putting on your dad's suit and tie and playing his swing music, which I still disagree with to this day, if only because buzz cuts, suits and ties are not socially acceptable sartorial choices for all of us. In much the same vein, the great crisis of this book is that the healthy, reasonably well-off heroine has to somehow bring herself to marry the equally healthy, reasonably well-off man she is madly in love with. Well, you're not expecting them to split up on the last page, are you? Gilbert uses this thesis to reconcile herself to either getting married or losing her boyfriend/her home country, but it's a little, well, like reading about someone's new-found concern for tax shelters because they've written a book which has suddenly made a metric fuckton of money.

It would be interesting, as Curtis Sittenfield suggested in the New York Times, if Gilbert went on to write a novel about her grandmother -- or her aunts, or her sister, or even herself, anything with some of the meaning and resolution of fiction. However, I fear what we'll see in probably another couple of years is yet another memoir, either about the happiness of second marriage or the trauma of second divorce. Since the much-ballyhooed statistic (which Gilbert wrings her hands about for several pages) is that fifty percent of all marriages snap like model airplane wings made of balsa wood, the best way to foretell which version we'll get might be a coin toss.(less)

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Mar 13, 2010 Lena rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, memoir

In thinking about why Liz Gilbert's memoir, Eat Pray Love, was so successful, I suspect that it's because it's the ultimate escapist fantasy. Gilbert flees a bad marriage and a bitter divorce and miraculously receives a large enough book advance to spend the next year traveling the world in search of pleasure, spirituality, and love. That her dream journey results in her finding healing and rebirth, not to mention a passionate new Brazilian lover, gives her story the perfect fairy tale ending.

Th...more In thinking about why Liz Gilbert's memoir, Eat Pray Love, was so successful, I suspect that it's because it's the ultimate escapist fantasy. Gilbert flees a bad marriage and a bitter divorce and miraculously receives a large enough book advance to spend the next year traveling the world in search of pleasure, spirituality, and love. That her dream journey results in her finding healing and rebirth, not to mention a passionate new Brazilian lover, gives her story the perfect fairy tale ending.

The problem with happily ever after, of course, is that the "ever after" part of that phrase is usually a lot more complicated than your average fairy tale would imply. Gilbert's new story picks up two years after the first one left off, when her Brazilian lover Felipe has been banned from returning the States unless the two of them get married. Still bearing scars from her first marriage, Gilbert is not at all happy about this, but decides to forge ahead out of her desire to be with Felipe. Committed details her attempts to make peace with this decision.

Unlike EPL, Committed is less a memoir and more of a very long personal essay. Gilbert does relay some aspects of her own story, but the book spends more time on discussions about her research into the history and sociology of marriage in Western society. Though other reviewers have mentioned Gilbert does not cover any new ground here, I was unfamiliar with most of this research, so I did find this aspect of the book interesting.

Gilbert is a writer of both strong opinions and strong feminist inclinations, however, and these tendencies likely combined with her personal scars to create a tone that was often preachy and oddly paternalistic as she discussed what a raw deal she thinks marriage has historically been for most women. Though there were places in the book when the witty and unselfconscious voice that made her so charming in EPL resurfaced, I found the overall tone of this book to be much more reserved and decidedly less engaging. I can imagine it's much harder to write openly about intensely personal issues once you know that millions and millions of people will read what you wrote, but those few moments in the book when the less guarded Gilbert did shine through made this loss seem even more pronounced.

Still, I don't regret having read this book. Gilbert is nothing if not intelligent, and her meandering exploration raised a number of interesting points that caused me to think about my own marriage in new ways. Her status as an affluent and childless woman may make her positions less accessible to those in more typical family circumstances, but for those wishing to participate in a thoughtful and at times entertaining discussion of marriage, there is value to be gained here. (less)

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May 27, 2010 Marybeth rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reasonable people have asked why did I read this book when I disliked Eat Pray Love so very very much & this is a reasonable & worthy question. If I were Elizabeth Gilbert I would take an extended vacation slash sojourn to ponder this, bemoaning my ever dwindling funds, with my Brazilian lover (let's call him Darling), internet surfing for books on the topic & having my sister send them out to my hotel rooms (Darling & me, we move around a lot). I would document my inner journey...more

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Nov 17, 2010 Richele rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While I am only mid-way through this book, I have begun to feel as though Gilbert is happily researching all the reasons why her marriage will prosper, and mine will not. I am in my early twenties, married to a man in his late twenties, and I feel as though Gilbert is not so much researching marriage, as she is all the reasons why Felipe is perfect for her. Although it is a memoire, and power to her for writing it, I sense a certain judgement on those of us out there who aren't as spiritually en...more

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Apr 22, 2010 Joakley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One thing I have noticed on multiple reviews here and at Amazon is a direct correlation between the amount of expectations the reader has upon entering this book, and the amount of dissapointment a person has by the time they write the review. This correlation makes me thankful that before picking up this book, I had never heard of Eat, Pray, Love, or Elizabeth Gilbert.

What's more interesting is that I have yet to find a critique of the book that hadn't already been addressed... in the book its...more One thing I have noticed on multiple reviews here and at Amazon is a direct correlation between the amount of expectations the reader has upon entering this book, and the amount of dissapointment a person has by the time they write the review. This correlation makes me thankful that before picking up this book, I had never heard of Eat, Pray, Love, or Elizabeth Gilbert.

What's more interesting is that I have yet to find a critique of the book that hadn't already been addressed... in the book itself, no less.

Frasnkly what I found interesting about the book is how other people respond to it. There was a lot in the book that had me nodding, and a lot that had me rolling my eyes. But what's great is that, whether I entirely agree or disagree with Mrs. Gilbert, it has given me a lot to ponder and respond to in my personal writings.

That, I think, is the ultimate best use of this book. It's a philosophers book. Hell, it could even be called a "navel gazer", though self-reflection is quite a valuable thing when you are making a lifetime decision at great cost of time, emotion, and resources. Hell, me and my wife would have probably stayed in Bali. But you can bet there would be a lot of "navel-gazing" were we ever forced to make such a decision.

What bothers me most, however, is that I see a lot of complaints that can be summed up as, "I cannot relate to this woman, and therefore this book doesn't resonate with me". My best response to that summary is, "well, duh". And the primary reason for this response was that she shoots down that objection within the first pages of the book. Her experience is NOT normal, and is so out of the norm that only a very small portion of the world could possibly share it with her. This book is not another Eat, Pray, Love, because she's not in that place in her live. It does not have universal appeal because it was written for 27 specific women.

There's only one thing remarkable about Mrs. Gilbert herself, for that matter, and that is that she has the audacity to believe that she can and should do whatever the hell she wants, while at the same time admitting that she isn't entirely convinced as to what that is, and realizing that other people's rules and customs necessarily play a large role in deciding what she has a shot at attaining.

What was actually interesting to me is that she ultimately capitulated to a degree as a coping mechanism for a concept that scared the crap out of her but was nonetheless too enticing on the merits of its fringe benefits to not at least attempt. What's more: she ADMITS this.

What I liked abuot this book had nothing to do do with whether I agreed or disagreed with her actions or the motives thereof. What kept me reading is the access I had to her mind and heart in all its ugly, beautiful, stupid, brilliant and tantalizingly contradictory reality. It is one of the few books I have read that no real resolution is reached (at least in my opinion), and yet life-changing action is still taken, for better or for worse (if you'll pardon the phrase).

And that is one thing, I believe, that EVERYONE can resonate with: when torn between options that are equally distasteful, picking one and fearfully, if resolutely, sticking with it. Then forming your beliefs around this decision to make it more appealing.

I call BS on anyone who claims never to have done this.(less)

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Mar 14, 2010 Joan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those contemplating marriage

Shelves: nonfiction, personal-memoir

I found Elizabeth Gilbert's first book, Eat, Pray, Love, a bit too self-indulgent for my taste. This book, though, struck a better balance of self-indulgent musing and researched social commentary. (And, I use the term "researched" loosely.) If you are contemplating marriage or are just interested in the institution of marriage in Western culture, this is a decent read.

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Aug 04, 2010 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I admit, I never finished Eat, Pray, Love. I got stuck in Pray and never got out. But I wanted to read her view on marriage (and second marriages) after what I remembered being a really terrible divorce. I noticed the reviews weren't great, but I also know that there was a lot of praise for E,P,L so that's probably hard to live up to. From previous experience, I was a skeptic about marriage myself. I think this day and age, it has a pretty bad rep with a lot of people. It was really interesting...more

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Mar 01, 2010 Salwa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was a big fan of Eat, Pray, Love and even went back and read her journalistic book, The Last American Man, so I was super excited to read this book. I appreciate that it can't have been easy to write again after the insane success of Eat, Pray, Love. Not to mention writing about something so personal knowing that you'd have 100s of thousands of readers this time around. And yet, this book is missing some of the things that made Eat, Pray, Love great.
1) A cohesive narrative arch. The book is b...more I was a big fan of Eat, Pray, Love and even went back and read her journalistic book, The Last American Man, so I was super excited to read this book. I appreciate that it can't have been easy to write again after the insane success of Eat, Pray, Love. Not to mention writing about something so personal knowing that you'd have 100s of thousands of readers this time around. And yet, this book is missing some of the things that made Eat, Pray, Love great.
1) A cohesive narrative arch. The book is broken up into chapters like "Marriage and Women", but really it's just a ramble through a bit of research, a bit of personal anecdotes, and a bit of what was going on in Gilbert and Felipe's immigration story. As an editor, I think this book needed to be edited more carefully, to piece the stories together, to flesh out the interesting ideas, and to erase redundancies.
2) Part of the joy of Eat, Pray, Love was that we didn't know where it was going but went along for the ride. I found that Committed was a bit staid. It's hard to pinpoint why. Maybe the writing is flatter, the revelations less amazing, the end of the story known. Or maybe the joy and downright funny moments were thrown out in the first draft. It's hard to know, but this time around Gilbert sounded unsure of herself.
3) Which brings me to my last point: we know Gilbert is not a sociologist, psychologist, etc. It killed me that this was repeated numerous times throughout the book. And yet, I can see why it's needed since clearly people have taken issue with her research already. This added to my sense of an insecure narrator. I actually really liked the research findings she presented, her anecdotal stories about marriage, the way she had to ask everyone and anyone how it works for them.
4) Lastly, maybe this book didn't do it for me because I've already made my peace with marriage. If it had come out a few years ago I might have written an entirely different review.

All that being said, I think it's worth the read because you never know what might resonate with you. For me, the idea of "windows and walls" and subversive marriage were fascinating.
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Feb 13, 2010 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love, she has fallen in love with a Brazilian named Felipe. In her latest, Gilbert tells the story of how she and Felipe came to be married, despite their adamant belief that after their painful divorces, they would never enter into the instution of marriage ever again. I was skeptical when I picked this one up. I thought it might be preachy - or an annoying attempt to justify why Gilbert's marriage was worthwhile, when so many others aren't. I thought it would be...more In Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love, she has fallen in love with a Brazilian named Felipe. In her latest, Gilbert tells the story of how she and Felipe came to be married, despite their adamant belief that after their painful divorces, they would never enter into the instution of marriage ever again. I was skeptical when I picked this one up. I thought it might be preachy - or an annoying attempt to justify why Gilbert's marriage was worthwhile, when so many others aren't. I thought it would be just another self-indulgent memoir. But, I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. While this is certainly a memoir, and Gilbert goes deep into her own personal relationships and feelings about marriage, this book is also a study of marriage - what it means in different cultures and religions, why people ever invented the institution of marriage, what it meant to women 100 (or even 20) years ago, and what it can mean for women today. Gilbert has done a lot of research - and sure she picks and chooses the histories that are relevant to her own life, but this one really resonated with me. As someone who never wanted to get married, but after 30 years came to terms with my own wedding, I really appreciated Gilbert's honesty and curiosity about her fears, her expectations in relationships, and her resentment toward a society that often defines marriage in a way that enforces and imposes gender stereotypes. As someone who has chosen not to have children, Gilbert also has intriguing viewpoints on how remaining childless impacts a life-long union (in bad and good ways). This is a great book for sparking discussion about the meaning of marriage - a hot topic certainly in California right now with the passage of Prop 8. And, I thought, a valuable tool for assessing one's own partnership - in terms of how it has lived up to one's expectations, or far exceeded it. I think I (and Gilbert) will always have some ambivalence about the institution of marriage, but learning more about where it came from and how others view it, certainly empowered me to feel like I can remain a feminist while still appreciating the wonder that comes from sharing my life with another person (in a state-sanctioned way). I can see how Glibert's tone might offend, or more likely, annoy many readers, but probably because I share many of Gilbert's inital notions about marriage, I appreciated this exploration of it.
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Jan 20, 2010 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I read Eat, Pray, Love a couple of years ago, I remember thinking to myself: "Elizabeth Gilbert is hilarious and sweet and very, very interesting, but I sure would not want to be married to her." Because, you know, she sounds kind of needy. And kind of over-dramatizing, and maybe just slightly nuts. As it turns out, Ms. Gilbert herself feels pretty much the same way. Not only did she not want to be married to someone like her, she did not want to be married at all - and most certainly did n...more When I read Eat, Pray, Love a couple of years ago, I remember thinking to myself: "Elizabeth Gilbert is hilarious and sweet and very, very interesting, but I sure would not want to be married to her." Because, you know, she sounds kind of needy. And kind of over-dramatizing, and maybe just slightly nuts. As it turns out, Ms. Gilbert herself feels pretty much the same way. Not only did she not want to be married to someone like her, she did not want to be married at all - and most certainly did not want to inflict her slightly-nuts self on someone else.

But then her handsome Brazilian lover Felipe, souvenir of her trip to Bali, is escorted out of the country by Homeland Security for taking too-frequent advantage of the 90-day-visa so that he could be with Liz. And the only way for them to live together (in the US) is for Liz and Felipe to marry. So while they are waiting for their case to wander thru the federal court system, Liz takes the opportunity to read everything she can about marriage in the hopes of befriending the alien concept before she plunges headlong into its scary, bottomless depths.

Okay, my confession: I was not scared of marriage when I got married, and I am still extremely fond of the institution. So sometimes I found Gilbert's fears sort of extreme and wanted to tell her to try the decaf for a while. But one of the reasons that I do actually love Gilbert's writing is that she pinpoints certain ideas that kind of fascinate me, too. Like infidelity: As she points out, people always say, "I didn't plan for this. IT JUST HAPPENED," like it was a lightning strike on a sunny day. But it isn't, folks! Gilbert has done the research, and as it turns out, you DID plan it. Sort of. With your foolish ways of making too-close friends and telling them too damned much about your life with your spouse. I find that stuff interesting. Another part I liked QUITE a lot was her debunking of the "sacred matrimony" concept about which I have heard WAY too much from social conservatives. (Again, nope. Marriage is what it has always been: a way of managing purely secular concerns of wealth management, taxes, personal safety and child-rearing. Sacredness is just an occasional add-on by certain cultural groups.)(Don't get me wrong: I belong to one of those groups. It's pretty darn sacred to me, but that doesn't mean it has to be for everyone.)

So, moments of slight hysteria here and there; a bit of tedium when the research gets kind of dry; but many fascinating bits and lucky for the reader, Elizabeth Gilbert writing the whole thing with her clever, funny ways. I liked it quite a lot.(less)

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Jan 21, 2010 nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The reactions that I've gotten while reading and carrying this book around for the last few days have been very interesting. Friends, random folks in the elevator, etc. have all enjoyed telling me how annoying they find the author and her previous book. People, it seems, love to hate on Elizabeth Gilbert. Whatever. The woman knows how to write a compulsively readable book! This book is much different than Eat, Pray, Love. It's less compelling narrative arc and more entertaining meditation on mar...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Paula Machado rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I simply loved this book. I'd enjoyed reading "Eat, Pray, Love", even though I loathed the "Eat" part, but had seen and heard a fair amount of bad reviews about "Committed" and, for that reason, was apprehensive about it. However, Elizabeth Gilbert is a brilliant author: she presents the right amount of intelligence, wit, sensibility and sense of humor in her writings.

In the beginning of the book, Gilbert warns her readers that this will be different than Eat, Pray, Love was. Her research and wr...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Annie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked this up to review. I almost put it back down again, because it seems like everyone and her uncle has reviewed this book in print, but I didn't have anything else to replace it with, so I thought I'd try anyway.

I'm glad I did. For some reason, I picked up on things the other reviewers didn't. Well, maybe it's not that they didn't notice, but it didn't matter to them.

As a memoir, this isn't the greatest, but then again I don't like memoirs in the first place. As a book using one relations...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Kate rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was reading merrily along with some arguments as to the structure of her prose or the depth of her arguments but nothing so sinister as to make me put the book down until page 164. In this section Gilbert devotes a few pages to a flyby of American woman's changing perceptions about marriage. Really it is an incomplete homage to Betty Friedan's groundbreaking work, The Feminine Mystique.

Here Gilbert writes,

"She (here Gilbert is referring to her grandmother) was happy because she had a partner...more

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Aug 10, 2010 Nancy Cours rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh, Liz. I really want to like you, I do. Here you write a punchy memoir-sequel Nancy-style book that seems like a great idea at first ("The marriage cynic finally gets married!!!!"), but actually it just makes you look like a big fat flaky whiner-opportunist ("I can't believe Homeland Security is making me marry my Brazilian lover!!! Therefore, I must dissect this problem for three years abroad on my publisher's dime so I can fully capture all my emotions in another conveniently best-selling 28...more

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Sep 23, 2011 E rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies

I have two things in common with Elizabeth Gilbert: I married a foreigner, and I really, really don't want to ever get divorced. As my partner and I planned our wedding and crafted our vows, we were inspired of course by love but also by the many shattered relationships we had observed, hoping to learn everything we could. Not to be better than anyone; on the contrary, to avoid hubris. I wanted my 50 year-old self to look back at my 28 year-old self and be proud, not shaking her head at any flig...more I have two things in common with Elizabeth Gilbert: I married a foreigner, and I really, really don't want to ever get divorced. As my partner and I planned our wedding and crafted our vows, we were inspired of course by love but also by the many shattered relationships we had observed, hoping to learn everything we could. Not to be better than anyone; on the contrary, to avoid hubris. I wanted my 50 year-old self to look back at my 28 year-old self and be proud, not shaking her head at any flighty, unrealistic declarations in the extreme that are all too common in youth. Having been underwhelmed by the "P" in Eat Pray Love, the "Skeptic" in Gilbert's second volume enticed me to give her a try.

If you've been suspicious of the institution of marriage only occasionally, or in fact don't quite understand what anyone could possibly have against such a fairy tale of joy, this book will probably get you thinking. If, however, you're well-versed in world history and feminism and are suspicious of marriage for those very reasons, this book will offer almost NOTHING new. Gilbert chit-chats about the many ugly marriage traditions from the oppression of women to racism to heternormativity to economics, cushioning each discussion with heavy slices of cheese. I felt as though I had joined a ladies' luncheon led by a well-meaning but not very well-read neighbor who had learned about these topics for the very first time from a few clips on NPR. Her heart is in the right place, but her ideas are tidbits and factoids, not refined concepts or arguments. And, like many a kind, older neighbor, she unwittingly condescends to her audience. Appreciating her sentiment but writhing at her style, I found myself clenching my teeth in a polite smile.

And, my god. "I mean." "But I just want to say here..." "Sorry for the rant." "This is just a really, really big issue of mine." It appears that publishers will call ANYTHING a book these days. Can I just send my diary to Viking Press, written as conversationally as, like, humanly possible? 'Cuz that'd sure be nice! (Maybe I need to have written a book that made a movie first? Dunno. You tell me.)

Go read Offbeat Bride if you're looking for someone to confront all the moral dilemmas of matrimony with a biting sense of humor and an undeniable talent for a well-turned phrase.

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Apr 17, 2011 Renate rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

I feel the need to explain why I read a book with a cute pink curly heart on its cover...

At the end of Eat, Pray, Love Liz literally sailed off into the sunset with her new lover. I just couldn't resist getting hold of a copy of this book to find out whether they "lived happily after".

Although neither of them wanted to get officially married again, they find out that they have no other option if they want to live together in the United States. This book describes their spat with Homeland Securi...more

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Jun 15, 2010 Jisun rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading this made me remember why I loved Eat, Pray, Love so much: her honest, frank, and funny voice. (It’s made me want to go back and re-read Eat, Pray, Love which I am going to do next.) But you don’t need to have read her first memoir to enjoy this one. Any “plot” points that are relevant from EPL she details again in this book. What makes Gilbert so accessible, relatable and relevant is she always has her finger on the pulse of the times-when many people are having more ambivalence towards...more

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Jun 18, 2010 Kricket rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, marriage, non-fiction, memoir-ish

my love for this book has a lot to do with who i am and where i am in life, so i don't expect that everyone else will have the same experience when reading it. even though i married young, we are coming on 4 years of what EG describes as husbandless, wifeless, childless marriage. in other words, a bit nontraditional. so this book, which is EG's exploration of whether or not her nontraditional relationship can fit into a traditional state-sanctioned marriage, really spoke to me.

at the end of eat ...more my love for this book has a lot to do with who i am and where i am in life, so i don't expect that everyone else will have the same experience when reading it. even though i married young, we are coming on 4 years of what EG describes as husbandless, wifeless, childless marriage. in other words, a bit nontraditional. so this book, which is EG's exploration of whether or not her nontraditional relationship can fit into a traditional state-sanctioned marriage, really spoke to me.

at the end of eat pray love, EG meets the older brazilian "felipe" in bali and falls in love. ultimately, they wish to settle in the US, near EG's beloved family. but they have decided to never marry because they have both been through awful divorces. felipe has been leaving the US every 90 days for work, then returning, and that has been working out fine. until one day, while returning, he is arrested and told that he has worn out his welcome, and the only way he'll be able to return to the states is if he & EG get hitched.

EG & felipe head to southeast asia, where they can live cheaply together while they wait for all the paperwork to go through. EG researches and writes as a way to process her thoughts & confusions about matrimony. it is obvious from the get-go that this is what will happen for this couple to stay together. so, it's not so much about convincing EG to get married a second time as it is about convincing EG that being married can be different this second time.

so EG sets off to writes a history of marriage as it interests and applies to her personally. i realize that this is deeply irksome to people who are not very similar to her, but to be fair: she does warn the reader several times that this is exactly what she is doing. she is researching marriage in southeastern asia because that is where she is traveling. she is researching marriage as it pertains to feminists because she is a feminist. she is researching childless marriage/childless women because she does not want to have children (perhaps my favorite part of the book.) she writes about gay marriage because she realizes that people dear to her who are gay, if in the same situation as she & felipe find themselves, would not be able to solve things by getting married.

as a feminist childless homo-sympathizer in a happy marriage, i loved the messages of this book, perhaps in an irrational, unfair way. i've already signed the paperwork and had the ceremony, so what could be more fun than 300 pages affirming my decisions and beliefs? but seriously, i do think there are other women who struggle with these issues. i also love EG's voice and writing style: compulsively readable with dry humor. i do wish she had done a better job citing her sources- i want to follow up on some of this stuff and the vague listing in the acknowledgements doesn't help that much. in a few years i will probably read this again and re-evaluate how pertinent it is to my life. but for now: spot on refreshing deliciousness.(less)

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Apr 07, 2010 Rebekah ODell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don’t envy Elizabeth Gilbert the task of following-up Eat, Pray, Love. The book is so popular and so uber-beloved that Julia Roberts herself is playing Gilbert in the hotly anticipated film adaption, for goodness sake! Aside from an Oprah endorsement (though it has that, too), what more could a book ask for than Julia Roberts’ guffaw attached to it?

But, here it is — Gilbert’s big follow-up. In the “love” section of Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert meets and falls for Brazilian Felipe while traveling...more I don’t envy Elizabeth Gilbert the task of following-up Eat, Pray, Love. The book is so popular and so uber-beloved that Julia Roberts herself is playing Gilbert in the hotly anticipated film adaption, for goodness sake! Aside from an Oprah endorsement (though it has that, too), what more could a book ask for than Julia Roberts’ guffaw attached to it?

But, here it is — Gilbert’s big follow-up. In the “love” section of Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert meets and falls for Brazilian Felipe while traveling in Bali. When we rejoin Gilbert in Committed, their relationship has both intensified and solidified. Elizabeth + Felipe = true love. Sadder-but-wiser from their respective nasty divorces, the duo vow to love each other passionately and to never, under any circumstances, get married.

Until U.S. Immigration services gets involved and bans Felipe from entry into the United States. Their best advice? Get married. As Gilbert puts it, an engagement “more like something out of Kafka than out of Austen” (19).

While they battle the red tape of FBI investigations and immigration interviews, Felipe and Gilbert stay in limbo by traveling around southeast asia. Gilbert, ever the journalist, uses her travels as an opportunity to extensively study not only the history of marriage, but also the sociological and anthropological implications of marriage in cultures and religions around the globe.

Let me just say — what she finds out is fascinating. Most of the book can be summed up in the book’s subtitle — Gilbert making peace with the institution of marriage. More non-fiction than memoir (although there are strong memoir overtones), Gilbert dives deep into what makes marriage tick, what makes it disastrous, and how we as a culture have arrived at our assumptions concerning matrimony (like, for example, the fact it’s called “matrimony” and not “patrimony” — the mother-making aspect of marriage is assumed in its very title!).

Interestingly, when my friends and I read Eat, Pray, Love, we were unanimous in our enthusiasm for “Eat” and “Pray”….but not so much for “Love”. In our reading, Gilbert loses something of herself again when she meets Felipe, and the book as a slightly more fairy-tale esque ending than felt warrented. (I realize it was a true story … there’s not a lot she could do about that. ) Thus, I approached Committed with trepidation. But I fell in love with funny, honest Gilbert all over again — in fact, I found the newly-found, self-confident Gilbert in Committed more likeable than her seeking Eat, Pray, Love counterpart. A speedy, informative, funny read, Gilbert’s fans will not be disappointed!
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Sep 07, 2010 Catherine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs

I was ambivalent about reading this, because the "Love" section of "Eat Pray Love" was my least favorite part. In fact, I nearly returned it to the library unread when the due date arrived, but decided to read "just a few chapters" in case it was worth putting on hold to read at a later date. Apologies to the next person in the queue.

What I expected: A self-congratulatory recap of how Liz and Felipe overcame immigration complications to achieve wedded bliss.

What I got instead: thoughtful analysi...more

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Apr 04, 2010 Khaya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People who are dying to know what became of Liz and Felipe after "Eat Pray Love"

Shelves: memoirs, readablenonfiction

I'm one of the people who wasn't bothered by Elizabeth Gilbert's self-absorption in Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, but I can't say the same this time. In "Committed," Liz tended to run on and on, mixing obscure (though not uninteresting)facts about marriage with personal experiences past and present and a great deal of angst.

Although I did give this three stars because I found Liz entertaining and chatty and mostly enjoyed the ride despite...more

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Mar 16, 2010 Jane rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is in fact a two point five, but I found myself annoyed with the author so gave it a two. How can I be annoyed, you ask? Think of all the hundreds, thousands of people who get married EVERY DAY, some, gasp! for the second or even third time. Do they make an outrageous fuss, crying "I'm so special, I think marriage is too enslaving for me"? No, they bite the bullet and take the risk.

If Elizabeth Gilbert weren't famous for Eat Pray Love, then I wonder what a publisher's reaction to this...more

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Mar 01, 2010 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book left me with a lot of mixed emotions. As many professional reviewers have commented, this is a very different text from 'Eat, Pray, Love' and readers should be forewarned. I'm a bit of a nerd so I looove reading things like random statistical facts, the history and evolution of the contract of marriage, and about various culturally imbued norms of matrimony. For the most part, I enjoyed Gilbert's insertion of her own voice and agony in making peace with marriage in her own life.

Two as...more

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Feb 26, 2010 Ciara rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: feminist-y-books, autobio-memoir, read-in-2010

full disclosure: i checked this book out of the library & have already retrned it, so i'm writing this review purely from memory & don't have the book around to reference. also, as far as the writing goes, the book probably deserves more than two stars. i am marking it down due to the conceit of the premise, which is as follows: elizabeth gilbert met her sweetie, felipe, during her round-the-world travels following her divorce, as documented in her international bestseller eat pray love....more full disclosure: i checked this book out of the library & have already retrned it, so i'm writing this review purely from memory & don't have the book around to reference. also, as far as the writing goes, the book probably deserves more than two stars. i am marking it down due to the conceit of the premise, which is as follows: elizabeth gilbert met her sweetie, felipe, during her round-the-world travels following her divorce, as documented in her international bestseller eat pray love. he is the older brazilian gentleman she meets & starts dating in bali. they spend several months frolicking in bali before elizabeth confronts the reality that she really needs to get back to the states & finish up the writing & publishing of eat pray love. felipe does something vague involving gem dealing, & his work often brings him to the united states. his visas enable him to stay in the states for up to three months at a time (i think), so elizabeth settles down in an apartment just outside philadelphia & felipe essentially moves in with her. he lives with her while he's in the country, & then leaves when his visa expires, & then comes back again a few weeks later. & so they live happily for a couple of years. sometimes they travel around the u.s. together, or travel together internationally. all is well.

& key to all of this is that they have vowed never to get married, because both of them have been through traumatic divorces & they have no interest in subjecting themselves to the legal system of sanctifying romantic commitments again.

one day, they are returning from some international destination through the dallas/forth worth airport (hey, i've been there!) when felipe is detained at customs. the agent processing felipe's visa feels that felipe is abusing the three-month visa situation & is circumventing the law & living in the united states without going through the proper immigration channels...all of which is more or less true. he is being deported back to australia, where he has citizenship, but no real life (no job, no apartment, etc etc). the customs agent recommends that elizabeth & felipe get married, so that felipe can get a spousal visa & begin the process of properly acquiring american citizenship. felipe & liz are really bummed out by this, but liz is all, "okay, fine, can we get married right now so we can catch our flight to philadelphia?" but of course, it doesn't work that way, & this is where the book started to lose me. of course it doesn't work that way! you need a marriage license, which in most states, involves significant amounts of paperwork, a waiting period, occasionally some mandatory counseling & blood tests, all kinds of shit. you'd think that someone who has been married before & been through the process would realize that. even in las vegas, you have to get a marriage license before you hit the 24-hour drive-thru chapel (though it's a lot easier there--no waiting period or blood tests or anything). add in a prospective spouse without u.s. citizenship & the waters are further muddied. did she really expect, like, an airline pilot or something to come over & administer vows? WTF?

anyway, felipe is taken away & liz secures a lawyer & it turns out that she has to be checked by the department of homeland security before they will have the proper permission from the u.s. government to get married in the states, etc etc. & they have to get married & live in the states because liz wants to stay near her sister. & such forth. while they are waiting for the processing to go through (which drags on for months), they travel to southeast asia together, where they can live on the cheap & be with each other. & basically, liz spends the entire time they are there, & this entire book, trying to justify her decision to get married again. supposedly the book is an "exploration" of marriage through history, culture, religion, etc. she researched the early christian relationship with marriage, which is far murkier than modern-day evangelists would have you believe. she travels into the mountains of vietnam to do some more of her patented mine-the-brown-folks'-ancient-wisdom-to-help-me-with-my-bullshit-first-world-problems (& the pains she takes to explain that she's not appropriating anyone's culture is almost comically painful to read). she examines medieval marriage customs before laws were written up by the catholic church. she attempts to conceptualize of marriage as a potentially incendiary act of rebellion against the status quo (which is a serious reach, but whatever).

& it all kind of strikes me as a load of bullshit. if liz & felipe really truly absolutely did not want to get married as much as she insist they did not, they would have found some other way to be together. maybe it would have taken longer, or been a more expensive legal process, or something (like living in the states, maybe) would have had to be sacrificed, but liz insists on presenting the situation as if they had absolutely no alternative. like she was dragged into this second marriage kicking & screaming. i just don't buy it. sure, maybe she was a "skeptic" after the implosion of her first marriage, maybe she wasn't chomping at the bit to get hitched again, but if she was really against it, she wouldn't have done it. so the entire book turns on a falsehood, & that really stuck in my craw while i was reading.

& then there's all the peevishness & annoying arguments she recounts from the period of self-imposed banishment to southeast asia. most notably was felipe's outburst on a mountain bus, about how upset he was that liz was stuck with him in asia instead of home in the states where she wanted to be, & how it was all his fault for not being a u.s. citizen, & it hurt him so much that he couldn't provide for her the way he wanted to (he didn't have access to running his business while he was banned from the states, apparently, because most of his gemstone sales happened in the u.s.), etc etc. basically, just a load of traditional gender role bullshit about how the man needs to take care of his little woman. even though liz had just published a huge blockbuster of a book & was more than capable of taking care of herself, physically & financially. & liz is all, "oh, this is so hard for him as a man." different strokes for different folks, i guess, but if my boyfriend ever picked a fight with me over his inability to provide for me when i was doing just fine providing for myself, my sympathies would be limited indeed. some people who read eat pray love were put off by felipe & felt he was paternalistic. this will only shore up that opinion.

i think that liz gilbert is probably at least a little bit of a feminist. several times, she writes about how women have not been treated very well by the institution of marriage, & how women's rights activists have worked hard to do away with fucked up marriage laws (like finally getting marital rape outlawed, for example). but she is so APOLOGETIC about anything that might smack of feminism. or of gay rights. it's pretty tough to write a book on marriage in this day & age & not mention gay marriage, & several times, liz writes pretty compelling arguments in favor of gay marriage...& then she APOLOGIZES for them. she writes things like, "sorry about the rant." i get that she has a big audience, & not all of her readers are entirely liberal, but it bothers me to see her actively catering to the oppressive tendencies in a chunk of her readership & apologizing for her opinions.

i expected this book to be fairly middling, but it was even kind of a disappointment to my already lowered expectations. the best thing about it was probably the intro, where she writes about eat pray love becoming a bestseller & suddenly getting attention for her writing, even though she'd been writing for years already, albeit about very different subjects & in a very different manner. she makes some pretty pointed comments about being a woman writing a memoir & suddenly being classified as "chick lit". i was way into the intro. everything after was a letdown.(less)

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Feb 22, 2010 Beth G. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, library-books, memoir, marriage

Admittedly, I had low expectations going into this book. I really liked Gilbert's first memoir (do I have to tell you that it was the best-seller, _Eat, Pray, Love_?), but it's been a while since I read it, and I had read a slew of negative reviews of _Committed_ before getting my hands on a copy of the book. But I enjoy Gilbert's voice. She is a talented writer, able to weave historical facts and personal experience into an engaging tale.

That said, this is indeed a memoir, not a report. Gilbert...more

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Feb 08, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mar-apr-2010

In this perceptive and intelligent work, Gilbert attempts to determine what "this befuddling, vexing, contradictory and yet stubbornly enduring institution of marriage actually is." The answer surprises her: its definition changes considerably across borders and eras. Gilbert's inclusion of this historical, economic, and social analysis in her narrative divided critics, who deemed it alternately fascinating and insightful or dry and academic. Most agreed, however, that Gilbert shines when recoun...more

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Feb 01, 2010 Irish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Love, true love, has brought us together today

I finished Committed, and am at an understanding with the book. I would say this book is worth a read, but as a reader, one must be committed to the book. A reader has to go into this book with an open mind (a few of Gilbert's views may be too liberal for some) and a reader absolutely must finish the book. This is not the type of book one can pick up, read a few chapters of and then put down. You'll walk away with an incomplete viewpoint and it isn't...more Love, true love, has brought us together today

I finished Committed, and am at an understanding with the book. I would say this book is worth a read, but as a reader, one must be committed to the book. A reader has to go into this book with an open mind (a few of Gilbert's views may be too liberal for some) and a reader absolutely must finish the book. This is not the type of book one can pick up, read a few chapters of and then put down. You'll walk away with an incomplete viewpoint and it isn't fair to you nor is it fair to Gilbert to not finish this book once you start it. In this way, the book itself is an excellent metaphor to marriage and relationships.

So, why did I read the book? There were no imminent questions about marriage in my life requiring reflection. Italian and I are happy in our marriage and have really grown up together, supporting each other along the way. Honestly, I picked up the book because I wanted to know if Elizabeth got married. Why did I care? Because it seemed obvious to me they were in love at the end of Eat, Pray, Love. That was it.

The book, then, was a surprise in its discourse on the institute of marriage, and I realized while reading it that I have also separated the concepts of being bound by love to another person and the social construct of legally binding two people into a specialized contract. I've viewed the contractual arrangement of marriage and the aspects of love and intimacy as two distinct parts of being married, and they happen at different times. Sometimes, one is even missing.

Overall, without "giving away" the book and without betraying the intimate aspects of my marriage, I would say Gilbert's book is a modern look at marriage and her reflection on the topic is at a level often missing in today's world. Just like a good marriage, if you start it, you do have to invest time into it, hearing out her arguments, and seeing how she finds peace. For those getting married, it's a good read to spark discussion. For those married, it's a good read to spark discussion. For those contemplating if they ever want to get married, I think this book will be especially poignant. Getting married is a very public display of an extremely personally decision, and Gilbert's public display of her struggle with the decision may be relevant or insightful.(less)

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Jan 18, 2010 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

well. the sophomore album. since, even though this is Gilbert's 5th (i think) book, Eat Pray Love made this effectually her 2nd. Oh, the expectations.

I liked Eat Pray Love but did not love it, so I was never on the lookout for The Next Elizabeth Gilbert Book. But when I saw that she had done some legwork researching the history of marriage, and with me currently being in a committed relationship in which both parties have expressed mild disdain for the 'institution' of marriage and puzzlement ov...more well. the sophomore album. since, even though this is Gilbert's 5th (i think) book, Eat Pray Love made this effectually her 2nd. Oh, the expectations.

I liked Eat Pray Love but did not love it, so I was never on the lookout for The Next Elizabeth Gilbert Book. But when I saw that she had done some legwork researching the history of marriage, and with me currently being in a committed relationship in which both parties have expressed mild disdain for the 'institution' of marriage and puzzlement over why the church is involved in the first place, i figured this would be a nice way to get some answers.

so, for that reason, i liked this book. the "history" chapter is the best one, succinctly going through marriage's crazy evolution... that is, until about the 15th century (a gracious estimate). If I remember correctly, there is a gaping hole between the 15th and 20th centuries that gets handily jumped over to skip to Gilbert's opinion on gay marriage. And I think that's great and all, and I am a little pleased that perhaps her discourse will reach some people who might otherwise not hear that 'side' of the discussion. BUT it also kind of sums up why the book lacks overall: she does too much jumping around, too much trying to mix marriage facts with Elizabeth Gilbert's life facts with others' opinions on marriage with Gilbert's opinions on marriage, interspersed with other stories that seem to add no real value to the overall narrative but are only included because they happened to occur during this "Quest for the answer to why it's OK that i'm getting married again even though i swore i'd never get married again." Which... I guess is the whole point of the book - to explore all those things - but that doesn't make it any more cohesive.

So, the conclusion that Gilbert reaches is completely clouded with this mentality - this I-must-find-something-to-support-my-rationalization - and that's a shame. Because I think this could have been a pretty good book, a pretty good exploration, but she may have been trying to do a few too many things at once: explaining her (liberal) views on marriage, justifying her own actions (which really need no justification), trying to please millions of completely different American women (some non-liberal, some never married, some less well-off) even though she claims to have stopped trying. If she is as prideful as she claims in her "5 biggest faults" list, then she never stopped trying. But I do appreciate Gilbert's honesty and her frankness. She doesn't apologize for her beliefs or her opinions. And I can't really imagine trying to write a book after finding success in something like Eat Pray Love, so I'll give her some kudos just for doing it (though I realize the advanced royalties probably didn't hurt as motivation).

All in all, it kind of read like a long, researched, edited blog. It was personal and let us into Gilbert's head again, which I suppose was nice of her. I can go to Wikipedia for the missing history parts.(less)

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Reflections Book ...: April 2011	1	2	Feb 24, 2013 12:19pm
Valentine's Day Giveaway-Win Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert	1	21	Jan 30, 2011 02:29pm
Some reviews	1	28	Dec 26, 2009 11:52am

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