Eat, Pray, Love in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Jul 07, 2007 Jessica rated it liked it

I didn't want to be one of those women who bought "Eat, Pray, Love." I am not like those types of women. And I don't want to be.

The plot: A memoir of a recently divorced women who travels to Italy for the food (eat!), to India for an ashram (pray!) and to Bali...to...well...sit on a beach all day...(love!) sitting on top of the New York Times bestsellers list for the gestational period of most small mammals -- normally, I leave these sorts of books to young mothers with book clubs, "opting out" I didn't want to be one of those women who bought "Eat, Pray, Love." I am not like those types of women. And I don't want to be.

The plot: A memoir of a recently divorced women who travels to Italy for the food (eat!), to India for an ashram (pray!) and to Bali...to...well...sit on a beach all day...(love!) sitting on top of the New York Times bestsellers list for the gestational period of most small mammals -- normally, I leave these sorts of books to young mothers with book clubs, "opting out" in the blue state suburbs.

But I really, really liked it.

The memorist, Elizabeth Gilbert, is NOT a likeable narrator for most of the book. (And a note on how the book is comprised: it is divided into 108 short chapters, to correspond with somekind of 108-strand Indian worry beads, and those chapters are divided into three sections, one for each country that she spends three months of her life in after a nasty divorce from a man who didn't want the divorce, living off the advance from this book. She is a talented writer, very clever, but that is to her benefit as well as to her detriment. Some of the 108 chapters are beautiful little essays; in others, there are metaphors on top of metaphors that needed to be edited out.) She is not unlikeable because the writing is bad, but because she is a well-educated, upper-middle class white (er, I think white...she is from Connecticut and grew up on a Christmas tree farm, so we can assume white, I think) woman with a city apartment and a country house in Westchester who's traveling to three countries that most people won't visit in their life. And she spends the whole time not ruminating if she is unloveable, which might have been more relatable, but complaining about the divorce and her subsequent romantic entanglement with another man who she didn't end up marrying, much to her chagrin. It just feels...whiny. But not in a high-pitched way; in a spoiled NYC-woman.

And that's how I felt for most of the book until I realized that she is really, really cool and she is the kind of person one would want for a big sister or a mentor. Who picks up and travles the world for a year? Who do you know who mediates in silence for hours on end in an Indian ashram? Who pesters their friends over the Internet from Indonesia, collects tens of thousands of dolllars and builds a house for a fellow divorcee, a single mother in Bali (an intensely spiritual country where divorce is frowned upon)? She's just awesome.

And though I predict this book won't be long-lasting on the NYT bestseller list, or dearly loved beyond its initial reading, it's thought-provoking Oprah-ish fare and that's good enough for me in the languid days of summer.
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Sep 21, 2007 Kecia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: life_stories, india, italy, indonesia

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! I love this book so much I could eat it! I love this book so much I want it to seep into my pores while I meditate. I love this book that I want to marry it!

Seriously - I really loved this book. And to think that after checking it out of the library I almost did not read it. But one peek at the Introduction and I was sucked in...perhaps because she structured it like a japa mala with 108 sections. That structure/idea appealed to the yogi in me.

For anyone who has ever ...more

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Mar 27, 2010 Cardi rated it did not like it

I stopped at page 73 and put this book down. It certainly had some merit within those 73 pages but it just wasn't engaging me. I found the book felt somewhat artificial; the authors' travels of which she writes were funded by an advance from the publishers for her to write this very book!!
So, after some internal debate and reading several reviews on here, I decided it wasn't worth my time to push on. I would give what I did read 1.5 stars.

I may go back at some stage and give the Indonesia sectio ...more

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Feb 02, 2010 jen8998 rated it it was ok

I wanted to like this one a lot more than I did. Italy was interesting as well Indonesia but the section on India proved tedious

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May 18, 2007 Alison rated it liked it

I really enjoyed certain parts of this book. I'll have to say, starting this book about a woman who goes through a horrible divorce for unknown reasons that seem to boil down to she doesn't want to be in the marriage anymore is daunting to someone who just got engaged! but I really enjoyed the "pray" and "love" sections. Ithought she had some really great insights, and it was encouraging to see her move from such despair to happiness and contentment with herself. Overall, I would read this book ...more

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Feb 21, 2008 Vanessa rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I picked this book up because EVERYONE was talking about it. I borrowed a copy from someone else who said she hadn't particularly cared for it, but that I might have a different opinion. I can't say for sure what my opinion would have been had I finished the book, because I only made it through the first few pages. ...more

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Feb 23, 2007 cam rated it really liked it

a memoir about the darkest time in your life is going to be a little whiney. The way she writes is very friendly, and made me want to be her friend, but sometimes just so I could tell her to buck-up already, like you have to tell friends to do, once in awhile. Still really liked it, very Mary Roach-esque.

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Apr 11, 2007 Kate rated it it was amazing

Gilbert travels around the world in search of herself--and learns how amazing divine pleasure (Italy), spirituality (India), and balance (Indonesia) can be.

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