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11th out of 25 books
—
11 voters
Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents
Spanning 15 years of travel, beginning when she is a sophomore in college, Wanderlust documents Elisabeth Eaves’s insatiable hunger for the rush of the unfamiliar and the experience of encountering new people and cultures. Young and independent, she crisscrosses five continents and chases the exotic, both in culture and in romance. In the jungles of Papua New Guinea, she l...more
Paperback, 304 pages
Published
May 24th 2011
by Seal Press
(first published March 24th 2011)
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"Wanderlust, however, is more than a chronological conquest of men and countries"--that is completely false. This book is all about this womans sexual conquest on five continents-and nothing more. She claims she has "wanderlust" but the only thing that has lust is her insane libido. She does not embark on a single journey in this book that does not at some point result in her getting in the sheets with some guy, sometime just for the sake of it. I think it is sad that this is her life, and she t...more
The negativity surrounding this book baffles me, to be honest. Yes, Eaves talks a lot about sex. Yes, she is honest and writes how she thinks. How is that something to get upset over? Sure, you can dislike the woman and the way she sees the world, but this is a memoir. The world through one persons eyes. And that cannot be wrong.
I adored this book. If you want to venture into my inter-Psyche, this is pretty much it. I found myself relating more than the other reviews are leading me to believe t...more
I adored this book. If you want to venture into my inter-Psyche, this is pretty much it. I found myself relating more than the other reviews are leading me to believe t...more
The book is based off an article that she originally wrote for World Hum, a much condensed version about her difficulty separating lust from wanderlust. I read the article before picking up the book, therefore I knew exactly what I was getting myself into and had no shattered illusions about how much sex would be involved, which seems to be the biggest negative in the reviews here.
Her memoir shows her travels from her own perspective. Fitting 15 years of globe trotting into a novel requires foc...more
Her memoir shows her travels from her own perspective. Fitting 15 years of globe trotting into a novel requires foc...more
I am shocked to read all the negative reviews about this book. I had my own feelings of disdain for Ms. Eaves, but I thought that this book was pretty damn relatable. Okay, I'm not privileged. And, I've never been told I can do whatever I want: I had to make that discovery on my own. But, underneath the privilege and the unsettling romance, she is just a girl trying to find her way in the world and prove that she can do it, man or no man, by her side.
It's not my favorite book ever, but I found...more
It's not my favorite book ever, but I found...more
2 likes · like · see review
I read Eat, Pray, Love and while it can be hard to admit, due to the big budget, low quality Julia Roberts movie, I actually enjoyed the book quite a bit. Sure, Gilbert was a little self-involved - but, wasn't it a memoir? What is a memoir, if not self-involved? Anyway, that's neither here nor there, I bring this up because Wanderlust is pretty much the same story as Eat, Pray, Love, only less spirituality and more infidelity.
Wanderlust chronicles the nomadic life of Elisabeth Eaves. From the ag...more
Wanderlust chronicles the nomadic life of Elisabeth Eaves. From the ag...more
I feel really sorry for Elizabeth as the book draws on and ends. At first you read her book with envy as she let's her uncertainty on life lead her around the globe, in and out of love. But, as someone who has both enjoyed the freedom of long periods of travel as well as long periods of stability, I feel sorry for the lack of meaningful relationships in her life. I can't imagine a life where my various friendship circles, dating back 10+ years, didn't exist. Or spending a week in Italy win frien...more
A book review in a fashion magazine made me add this book to my "must read" list. Considering that I have read very few books over the past couple of years, and that I have started a bunch that I have never been able to finish, I think it’s important to point out that I read this one fairly quickly and hated to put it down.
Elisabeth Eaves is a fearless, strong woman. Her travel memoir takes her to exotic, even dangerous places—ones the average girl probably wouldn't think about traveling to. Fo...more
Elisabeth Eaves is a fearless, strong woman. Her travel memoir takes her to exotic, even dangerous places—ones the average girl probably wouldn't think about traveling to. Fo...more
It's really, really, really hard not to write off Elisabeth Eaves as an insufferable brat. She whines consistently about her inability to feel at home pretty much anywhere on the planet and flees in the other direction of anything she finds suspiciously boring or domestic or stable. Wanderlust is a bit misleading, I was surprised to discover that a good chunk of the book is devoted to her romantic relationships. It should've been subtitled: Love Affairs in Five Continents
There's an air of condes...more
There's an air of condes...more
7 likes · like · see review
I am going to be completely honest - I had a love/hate relationship with this book. Wanderlust by Elisabeth Eaves did not meet my expectations. But since I'm being truthful, my expectations were probably half of the battle I endured through this memoir.
I have been known to entertain the principles of wanderlust more than occasionally. Due to this shared interest, I thought that I could relate to and find a kindred spirit in Eaves' writing. I was wrong. I found myself baffled by some of her choi...more
I have been known to entertain the principles of wanderlust more than occasionally. Due to this shared interest, I thought that I could relate to and find a kindred spirit in Eaves' writing. I was wrong. I found myself baffled by some of her choi...more
I read this book in one sitting at Barnes and Noble today.
I had wandered in aimlessly and, as usual, found my wide-eyed self in the travel section. After a few skimmings of various catchy titles, I began to feel the familiar need to curl up in a hard chair and get lost in some tasty pages. I selected this book based on the title, certain words from a page somewhere in the middle that jumped out at me and stuck to my sensibilities, and a third reason which is utterly impossible to translate into...more
I had wandered in aimlessly and, as usual, found my wide-eyed self in the travel section. After a few skimmings of various catchy titles, I began to feel the familiar need to curl up in a hard chair and get lost in some tasty pages. I selected this book based on the title, certain words from a page somewhere in the middle that jumped out at me and stuck to my sensibilities, and a third reason which is utterly impossible to translate into...more
After reading the novel, I can tell you that Elisabeth Eaves lived up to my high expectations, capturing perfectly what it was like to experience the luxury of being young, beautiful (or in my case, sort of pretty), and free, traveling the world on a moments whim.
I couldn't help but remember what it was like in my own twenties, not being stuck in one spot in the real world, traveling (on a much smaller scale than her) as a flight attendant, working as a cocktail waitress, Cabana girl and barten...more
I couldn't help but remember what it was like in my own twenties, not being stuck in one spot in the real world, traveling (on a much smaller scale than her) as a flight attendant, working as a cocktail waitress, Cabana girl and barten...more
The perfect beach read - i read it in one sitting. The author pulls in pieces of her life story that highlights her wanderlust as it starts when she is a teenager and shows no sign of stopping near the end of the book. She is quite candid about all of her sexual escapades, and her lifestyle is certainly a mirror for her travel patterns. What i found so interesting was that even though she travelled off the beaten path, and often followed her heart in the places she chose and the men she slept wi...more
This memoir is only partly about travel, and I enjoyed reading about Elisabeth Eaves's experience as a rather aimless backpacker. She ventured to all sorts of exotic places, like Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and has interesting observations about what it's like to be a young woman in the Middle East (pre 9/11). The section that describes a harrowing sailing trip in the South Pacific was really engrossing. However, the author's prodigious romantic and sexual experiences...more
If I had to subtitle this book, I think it would read, "Wanderlust- How I Slept My Way Around the World." I love travelogues and I love memoirs, but I did not love this book. Sure, she is a decent writer and there were parts that were intriguing. She travels to a lot of interesting places that are not often written about in travel books like Yemen and Papua New Guinea. I also appreciate her wanting to challenge herself when she travels and to experience things that are sometimes hard, as I do th...more
Unlike an alarming number of reviewers here, I'm not annoyed that Elisabeth Eaves got laid a lot in her twenties. Envious, sure, because when it comes to love on the road, my travels always seem to involve awkward make-out sessions at best, and Eaves finds easy sex and even several serious relationships while moving about. Envious, then, but not angry. (Might I suggest Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape for those scared by the idea of a woman attuned to her l...more
This is the longest book ever.
Are there a lot of pages? Not really. But it took so.long.to.read. It's exciting, and draws you in. Then from about the 1/3 mark until the end, it's just depressing. I was looking forward to reading it because I thought it would be a fun adventure to read about a woman's life travelling around the world... and then I became so bummed out by her relentless quest to fill her life with men to satisfy a need that was, for her, unable to be satisfied.
Her aimless wanderin...more
Are there a lot of pages? Not really. But it took so.long.to.read. It's exciting, and draws you in. Then from about the 1/3 mark until the end, it's just depressing. I was looking forward to reading it because I thought it would be a fun adventure to read about a woman's life travelling around the world... and then I became so bummed out by her relentless quest to fill her life with men to satisfy a need that was, for her, unable to be satisfied.
Her aimless wanderin...more
The first part of this book I enjoyed immensely. I loved her candor and vulnerability. I felt she made some very true observations about traveling. I lost her story around the time she developed an affair between two men. I lost sympathy for her selfishness when it started to hurt other people. I had trouble relating to her reasons for the affair, as well difficulty interpreting her opinion on the matter. By the time I got to the end, the book felt more like a ballad to her lost lovers.
Like I s...more
Like I s...more
Found everything about this book so irritating- primarily the main character. I could never relate to her about anything and I thought I would enjoy this book as someone who really enjoys travel but it wasn't really about travel at all. I learned very little about each of the places the character visited- instead only saw it from very myopic lenses from someone who was never trying to understand the culture or people at all. Every single one of her relationships with men was just immature, self-...more
I have found a travelogue I didn’t like.
I love travel books. They take me somewhere new or somewhere I’ve been before and make me want to jump on a plane. I enjoy vicariously having new experiences, meeting unique locals and trying amazing food I’ve never heard of. This book held none of that for me. I understand the bug to travel but her travel choices would never be my own and I couldn’t relate. Time after time the travel was about running away from something in her current location, putting h...more
I love travel books. They take me somewhere new or somewhere I’ve been before and make me want to jump on a plane. I enjoy vicariously having new experiences, meeting unique locals and trying amazing food I’ve never heard of. This book held none of that for me. I understand the bug to travel but her travel choices would never be my own and I couldn’t relate. Time after time the travel was about running away from something in her current location, putting h...more
6 likes · like · see review
There are people who will GET this book, and people who won't. If you have a severe case of wanderlust, you'll understand.
This is a memoir about travel and escape. The author, Elisabeth Eaves, becomes obsessed with travel and adventure and needs to escape from shackles. This includes running away from men and sabotaging relationships. Dudes come out of the woodwork for this woman, and she keeps on smacking away all these relationships.
I could relate a lot to this book as I have a severe case of...more
This is a memoir about travel and escape. The author, Elisabeth Eaves, becomes obsessed with travel and adventure and needs to escape from shackles. This includes running away from men and sabotaging relationships. Dudes come out of the woodwork for this woman, and she keeps on smacking away all these relationships.
I could relate a lot to this book as I have a severe case of...more
Elisabeth Eaves’ travels from the late 1980s going abroad to Spain as a high school student, as an au pair of sorts, and then Egypt as a student on a year-long exchange and so on. Always travelling, trying to escape the trappings of settling down. At age 22/23 she even bought a house lived with a boyfriend, but then took off. Always off. Tales of travel, and living in various places, from New York to Chicago to London, interspersed with the stories of the boyfriends, and freewheeling sex with ot...more
What is it about Eli(s)zabeths and memoirs? This is now my third and it is very unlike Elizeth Bard's "Lunch in Paris" or Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love." I purchased it from Kramerbooks in D.C. as a tithe during my annual piligrimage to our nation's capitol. Within two pages I was underlining Eaves' razor sharp words as they cut into my own paralyzed wanderlust. As her story weaved from youth hostels, to diplomatic security to state department digs I found myself frustrated and validated...more
The title is misleading. It should be "Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Myself While I Travel." I loved the parts that were about travel, especially the beginning when she's in the Middle East, but I found her such a selfish person it was hard to finish. She cheats on everyone she dates, including her fiancee, and genuinely doesn't seem to care how that affects other people. Her rationale is that she's "like a man" and that she's being persecuted for not being feminine enough to put other people's...more
I have pretty mixed feelings on this book and it appears that other readers found it polarizing....
On one hand, it seemed like a more drawn out and more carnal version of "Eat, Pray, Love". It is self-absorbed. It does have a lot of flings and boyfriends scattered throughout. So, those reviews are true.
But on the other hand, I couldn't put it down because I could relate so much with the author's feelings of escape and inexplicable pulls towards places/countries/cities. I admired her boldness to...more
On one hand, it seemed like a more drawn out and more carnal version of "Eat, Pray, Love". It is self-absorbed. It does have a lot of flings and boyfriends scattered throughout. So, those reviews are true.
But on the other hand, I couldn't put it down because I could relate so much with the author's feelings of escape and inexplicable pulls towards places/countries/cities. I admired her boldness to...more
Jun 14, 2011
Christina (Confessions of a Book Addict)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
beach-read,
for-review
Elisabeth loves to travel and that's putting it mildly. She's spent fifteen years traveling the world; in fact, she's traveled to five continents. Many of those trips, she faced alone as a young women and she's always immersed herself in the culture of each new place she visited. Travel is Elisabeth's everything as she is truly unconventional and challenges society's expectations of women. She's not satisfied by the usual life and wants something more. Wanderlust by Elisabeth Eaves is a travel m...more
"To be in love felt expansive. It included the whole world, made anything possible."
This pretty much sums up the journeys Eaves documents in Wanderlust. She can't settle down. She can't pick a career. Or a relationship, really. It all boils down to her continuing to go, pursue, have new experiences, in travel and in love, in a way that the two were inseparable. I loved that spirit, and it definitely took her some places that aren't even on my list - Pakistan and Papua New Guinea, for instance.
S...more
This pretty much sums up the journeys Eaves documents in Wanderlust. She can't settle down. She can't pick a career. Or a relationship, really. It all boils down to her continuing to go, pursue, have new experiences, in travel and in love, in a way that the two were inseparable. I loved that spirit, and it definitely took her some places that aren't even on my list - Pakistan and Papua New Guinea, for instance.
S...more
I can't believe I finished this book. It was totally lame and one of the worst travel logs I've ever read. The only reason I'm giving it two stars instead of one is because I love reading about people and places that I'll probably never visit.
The author describes her sexual encounters more than she describes the beauty of the places she visits. The book should be called, 'Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Many Men'. At the beginning of the book she is more descriptive in her prose. The second half...more
The author describes her sexual encounters more than she describes the beauty of the places she visits. The book should be called, 'Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Many Men'. At the beginning of the book she is more descriptive in her prose. The second half...more
4 likes · like · see review
The title probably should have actually been "A Love Affair with 500 guys". I enjoyed the beginning when she first got the travel bug and was enjoying being a part of other cultures, but then it seemed like she just started running away from everything so she could be "free" or whatever. I found her to be shallow and selfish and really ended up not liking her by the end. This story was less about travel and more about how awful she is at relationships because she prefers to live the double life....more
I couln't get through this book. I got over halfway through and just disliked the attitude of the author so much - so spoiled, selfish, shallow... I'm hoping that she will redeem herself in later chapters, I just don't have the patience enough to read on and see if that happens. "Me me me me me me...and oh yeah, I'm still whining about how I don't belong anywhere." I felt sorry for her, but was too annoyed to continue. She just was lost, and her wanderlust wasn't for the desire to explore other...more
This book caught my eyes when I visited home last winter break. "Wanderlust" - sure! The title must have been tempting and appealing to any young adults with the desire to see the world. After skimming through the first and the last chapter, without knowing any better, of the book, I decided to buy.
Now, for the content: Though what I got out of the book is not exactly what I expected. It's not entirely about traveling, it's Elisabeth's memoir with her personal life story as a world wanderer. And...more
Now, for the content: Though what I got out of the book is not exactly what I expected. It's not entirely about traveling, it's Elisabeth's memoir with her personal life story as a world wanderer. And...more
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“The paradox of love is that to have it is to want to preserve it because it's perfect in the moment but that preservation is impossible because the perfection is only ever an instant passed through. Love like travel is a series of moments that we immediately leave behind. Still we try to hold on and embalm against all evidence and common sense proclaiming our promises and plans. The more I loved him the more I felt hope. But hope acknowledges uncertainty and so I also felt my first premonitions of loss.”
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32 people liked it
“I begin to wonder how different "real" love is from my imaginary affair. In any relationship there's both reality and the perception of reality. As long as I see the other person as smart or sexy or handsome or good and as long as I can hang on to the feeling of loving and being loved then it's real. But somehow we're able to hang on to those feelings and beliefs even when objective reality diverges. Actions don't necessarily alter beliefs and beliefs matter more. Before you fall in love you begin to imagine the other person. You create your lover extrapolating on reality dusting him or her with gold. You embellish to the point of perfection and then fall hard for the image you've made. With all my traveling I may have spent more time imagining than others. But a huge amount of all love takes place in the head. In the middle of any relationship we can spend more time hour for hour thinking about the other person than we spend in his presence. And after any breakup there's no telling how long we might pine for someone. Love itself is in the mind's eye.”
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16 people liked it
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