Why do people not like this book?

[Jazz]

I am shocked to hear there are some people out there that don't like this book. We all can't like the same things in life but to say a book is awful is a bit drastic don't you think?

I saw the movie and I enjoyed that also.

[Kressel]

I liked it, but most of my friends who disliked it consider the author "whiny."

[Roo]

I've read the book, and watched the movie, in my opinion it's because the writer isn't really someone you can relate to, she leaves her husband and has different love stories with other different men throughout the book, travels to multiple other countries "searching for herself", and I don't think everyone has the capability of doing so, I'm not saying that's what she wanted, but still "unrelate-able" to me she just seemed childish .

[Misteeyed]

How about themes of narcism woven into a story of "it's all about me."

[Phyllis M.]

I liked the book AND the movie with Julia Roberts! I liked the book so much because it was something personal to the author that she chose to share with the world and I found it entertaining, happy when it was supposed to be, sad when it was sad and very good for those of us that can identify with the author of this wonderful book! It's all about me? Yes it is, because it is HER LIFE!

[Phyllis]

I agree with misteeyed. I couldn't even get through it and that is unusual for me. "It's all about me". Exactly how I felt about the writer.

[Kristine]

I LOVED Both the Book & Movie. I have "Il Dolce Far Niente" tattood on me as a reminder to live life to the fullest.....a the sweetness of doing nothing!
As for eat,Pray,love, I believe the issue many have with both the author, book and even the movie is, They only wish they had the guts to be honest and walk away from a miserable life. So many people life their lives day to day, doing the same thing, stuck in a unhappy marriage,or life, pretending and trying to convince themselves and those around them that this is how life is supposed to be. This woman decided she wanted more! She refused to settle! I believe it scares the crap out of most to face reality,and accept that they just may be living a life like hers before she walked away,and finally lived. Most won't take risks,and settle,only to life unhappy. Spending their life convincing themselves they are indeed happy. Working more hours,to buy more things,to fill the gaps of unhappiness,or to fit in to the mold we feel we are supposed to fit into. Sad. It's easy to say the author cried the blues,but the diff is, she walked the walk. I've watched the film several times,and read book many times,and find this to be a woman of inspiration,character.and strength. This story is one I believe every woman should read & see. It's spiritual as well as strength & self esteem building.

[Nathalia]

I do not hate the book, I just didn't enjoy it as much. For one, I did not really get what her problem is and why she really needs to travel to change herself. But alright... She goes travelling... With her American, I-watched-too-many-Lifetime-movies goggles on the entire time. So Italians eat a lot and enjoy life, Indians pray and are all up on their spirituality... What's the point of travelling, if you want to experience only the cliches you set out to experience?

[Tessa]

Well, at first I thought, I am just too young, to really get this book. Because a lot of the experiences Liz made and is struggling with, I just don't have (yet). Than I realised that Liz and I a quit different. And that is where it got complicated. I mean, the writing was nice, I laughed a few times at her jokes, but than I had this moments like "why the hell does someone need a reason or even an excuse to lean a language?" If you want to, do it! And in moments like that, I just got so frustrated with her. I did feel for her, I just really couln't unterstand her. And that made it really hard to enjoy the book. Im sure Liz is a nice person, we just see the world so different.

[Charlene]

I agree the book is not realistic. My divorce would have been less painful with lovers, travel, etc..
Also, the author submitted the proposal for this book to her publisher, got the green light and off she went to write about her "reassessment" of her life. Epitome of self indulgence. I prefer to read something less manufactured.
Charlene

[Alecto]

I agree with those who says is whiny and "all about me", that's exactly how I felt reading it.
It felt like a coming of age for someone who's far too old to be coming of age.
Perhaps I didn't like it because I am almost her age and went through this phase at about 15, so I couldn't connect to her and her need to be approved and loved at all times.Besides, her writing is quite boring and far too sloppy for my taste.

[Phyllis M.]

Everyone who gets a divorce deals with it differently, and this a book about how one woman dealt with hers. If it is difficult to get into it/read it, then maybe you're not ready? I've been one of the few that I know personally, that has not been through a divorce, but with so many friends having had that experience it has made it easier to understand that pain, on any level, is dealt with on a personal level. As far as "it's all about me?" Well, yes, it is about her and her experiences alone. I feel that Liz is sharing her experiences with us and giving each one of us a way of how she lived through her divorce and how each individual experience was lived. When someone reads a biography or autobiography, is it really so different from Liz has done? In my opinion, no. This is just another form of those same books. If we take something away from it, then that's fine, if not, that's okay too.

[Charlene]

For the record, i was divorced in 1987 and knew them it was the best thing i ever did. However beyond that, you are right that this book is the author's choice. Some like the book, others don't. I guess i fall into the group that has no patience for self indulgence presented like this.

[Alecto]

Charlene wrote: "For the record, i was divorced in 1987 and knew them it was the best thing i ever did. However beyond that, you are right that this book is the author's choice. Some like the book, others don't...."
Here, you said much better than I did. I totally agree with you. We all undergo emotional traumas in life, I'm just not the sort of person that mopes around looking for people to understand and pat my shoulder. I'm full aware that everyone choses his/her way on things, just found boring and annoying reading about it, to answer the original question "why do people not like this book" . That's my personal reson not to like it.

[Kressel]

Alecto wrote: "It felt like a coming of age for someone who's far too old to be coming of age."

40 is the new 20! So call it a "coming of middle age" book.

[Wynne]

My bookseller told me "all the younger women like it and the older women (Like me) do not". She is selfish, self absorbed and I don't need any more such folks in my life. And having stayed in my marriage for over 40 years, in good times and bad, I am not sympathetic to someone who is momentarily unhappy and seeks the immediate gratification of instant change. Suffered through EAT because I was in Italy, then put the whole book down.

[Alecto]

Kressel wrote: "Alecto wrote: "It felt like a coming of age for someone who's far too old to be coming of age."

40 is the new 20! So call it a "coming of middle age" book."
ahahhaha I like that!!! ;)

[Kressel]

Elizabeth Gilbert answers her critics and plugs her new book: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/f/0/5/f0595...

[JO]

I liked parts of the book, reading about the different locals and people and even food was interesting. I did not like Elizabeth Gilbert, who tries to make us feel sorry for her, a woman who can take a year to travel (yes I know she was being paid for an article or something) and has an apartment in Manhatten. I am pretty sure she said she had money troubles, ya right.

[Elisa Santos]

Joni wrote: "I liked parts of the book, reading about the different locals and people and even food was interesting. I did not like Elizabeth Gilbert, who tries to make us feel sorry for her, a woman who can t..."

The money to travel came from the advancement on the writting of this book.

To me, we all like diferent things and books are the same: i like it and you don´t - simple as.

I liked the book, it rangs some bells inside me, and i could relate to some events in her life.

The most funny comment that i have read over and over again is that this is na egotistic book....well, she wrotte about HER life and HER experiences - what was she to talk about: the extinction of the Panda bear? Of course it will be about her and her and her some more.....but one already knows that when picking up a book of this nature.

[Kressel]

It seems people think it's self-indulgent to get too philosophical. I say this because I read the same assessment of a chapter in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill in which the author goes into his religious/spiritual beliefs.

[Sarah]

Charlene wrote: "I agree the book is not realistic. My divorce would have been less painful with lovers, travel, etc..
Also, the author submitted the proposal for this book to her publisher, got the green light an..."
Excellent point, having "an experience" to write a book sounds contrived. I just didn't like it for a variety of reasons including her style.

[Ebony]

I just finished reading this book a few weeks ago, and I loved it! I understand how some people may have not liked it tho. It had some dry parts, ran a little long. But if you read between the lines, and maybe saw a little bit of yourself in some of the things she learned, it was well worth it. (Movie was really not that good tho lol.)

[Yoli]

Jazz wrote: "I am shocked to hear there are some people out there that don't like this book. We all can't like the same things in life but to say a book is awful is a bit drastic don't you think?

I saw the mov..."

I completely agree with you. It is in fact one of my favorites.

[Alanna]

I've really staunchly opposed this book for a loooooong time. It took me forever to read. And when I DID read it, the first few pages had me in tears - which is okay. Lord knows I've cried dozens of times reading a book.

But I cried for all the wrong reasons. I somehow thought that my relationship was as doomed as hers and I pretty much ran over my relationship with a bulldozer while I was reading the first chapter. Thankfully, my relationship today is a helluva lot happier and healthier than it was back then. Anyway ... I digress.

I enjoyed her travels in Italy. I even enjoyed bits and pieces of her time in India and Indonesia.

My issue isn't that she had her own religious experience or that she's trying to communicate how it affected her. My issue is that she just came off as entirely preachy and even a little holier than though.

When my relationship fell apart, I wasn't lucky enough to be able to just trot around the globe for months and I just think it sets really unrealistic expectations. Instead, what I think I did was make a series of increasingly poor choices and nearly ruined several other friendships and relationships - a character flaw I'm still trying to this day to improve upon.

Now, having said that ... I might go back one day and try to red this again. I normally don't maintain a "hate on" for books, so it could be that I'm mucking a few details up in my brain. But, at the initial read ... I didn't like it.

But one day .. who knows.

[Andrea]

Oh, I must agree. While I liked the premise of the book and the authors writing, I felt well, annoyed with her. The disintegration of a marriage is a terrible thing, however, I felt that she simply didn't try to hold it together, that she positioned herself as the victim somehow. It takes two. The failure to work towards, or maturely dissolve her marriage may have been the impetus for this journey that I enjoyed reading, but it was a poor reason, in my opinion.

[Colleen]

I really loved the book. I also read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and have heard similar complaints - well it's a memoir! And I don't know anybody who hasn't made mistakes, who isn't whiny and "all about me" - we can all try and be a little bit more compassionate in this world, and those who work towards developing their character are pretty special in my book. I have a ways to go.

[Anastassia]

I loved this book. So many insights felt like my own unexpressed emotions. Yes, the author is well-off. Yes, she was paid to go around the world in search of herself. Most of us can't. So what? This is her life, why must we compare it to ours? Can't we just see through her eyes and enjoy what she is able to see?

I have gone through a similar divorce, although on an far tighter budget. I get her crying on the floor feeling trapped without a proper reason, and her need to find herself. I was very much able to relate to the story.

[Purple]

I had heard such praise for this book; people said it was illuminating, uplifting and humorous. I managed to read 1/3 of it and it didn't make laugh once, i found the author whiny and self absorbed, and the writing boring. There was nothing enlightening or liberating in a woman who's view of finding her identity and solving her problems was to travel to other countries and freely stuff herself with ice cream and food; i couldn't make myself continue reading.

I appreciate that people with similar experiences as hers will find the book reltable. I couldn't. For someone who has had a much harsher life with earlier and harder struggles than an unfulfilling marriage (without meaning to be dismissive of it), and to whom taking a plane to another country to search for her identity was neither a choice nor a real solution to anything, the book reads hollow and without real meaning, and the writer sounds too self indulgent.

So just as any book, the reader is able to relate or not according to their individual experience, and on that depends if one loves it, hates it, or simply can't care about it at all.

[[deleted user]]

I HATED this novel. UGH..what can I say that is remotely good or nice? Absolutely nothing. I found the author to be completely selfish and whiny. I had watched the movie first, and thought maybe it was just the movie that portrayed her as this self absorbed b**tch. NOPE. the novel was just as bad.

Sorry. As a woman, I could not relate, nor was I able to sympathize..just my opinion.

I'm sure there are women out there who loved the book and was enlightened by it.

[[deleted user]]

PS It's more like: WHY do people LIKE this book?!

[Eva]

I feel like people either hate or absolutely love this book and there is no moderate opinion posible haha :D

[Katt]

I tried to give this book a chance. I really did. I've read stories before about reinventing oneself or going on a self indulgent journey and liked the book. So why did I not care about Gilberts journey and yell at the book every time she met a man to run, run far away from her? Because of how she writes about herself.

There's never really any contrition, regret, or real self reflection. She indulges in things that do not really make her grow, yes India included, yet cocoon her in "I sooo deserve this" platitudes, like a teenager would. Her journey is just really expensive retail therapy. She feels bad, so do stuff to just sooth her ego. Not a solution a Band-Aid. She shouldn't have to consider her actions, because she's hurting inside. Give me a break. Bullies hurt others or without thought because they're hurting too. So she's still the same person who started.

I don't find her enlightened. I find her stagnate. All the journeying all the classes, and all the love, and she is still a writer that returned to normal hum drum life. (not so hum drum, but to her I imagine it is.) She didn't start a charity, she's not starting a school of thought, she didn't change. She just had a moment, wrote about it, and got a kick out of Julia Roberts playing her.

[Joyce]

Originally, I found this book cloyingly annoying. All of my younger friends (I'm 61, they are in there early to late 40's) loved this book. I kept going back to why it bothered me so much. I thought the author was whiney and self absorbed. I liked the movie much better. I loved her next book, "Committed". After reflecting on EPL and discussing it with a few of my friends, I think the problem is mine, envy. I never had the courage to really go on a journey to discover me. I've never had the courage to say, "my life is really stuck and sucky and I'm going to change it and me". At least not in the bold way that Gilbert did. She didn't have any children to be responsible for, her marriage was failing so why not go on the adventure of a life time. She wanted a more fulfilling, joyful, peaceful life and went about it in a bold and unique manner. My initial annoyance was really with me and what I was afraid to do, but she did it. She decided she deserved to live the way she wanted to do and did it. I bet a lot of women would like to have that kind of courage---but instead we get mad at Gilbert for at least giving herself the gift of doing what she wanted to do. I've definitely gotten more from this book than was originally thought.

[Lara]

By all means, go on the journey of a lifetime; write about it; make a fortune. None of this bothers me.

Spend two hundred pages begging me to feel sorry for you? Nauseating.

[Miss&trope]

There's a multitude of reasons someone would love, loathe, or fall somewhere in between when it comes rating something subjectively. I think that whichever we decide upon, possibly says more about us than the work itself. Finding it relatable, self-indulgent, whiny, inspirational...whichever, is always going to based on what we believe life, experience, or just writing is, should be, or can be. It's always interesting to see how we can all read the same thing and be affected by it so differently.

For my part, I rather enjoyed the book. I thought she did a good job of letting us experience the world through her eyes. I didn't praise it to the high heavens, but it gave me a chuckle here and there and some things to think on. So in my book, it did it's job.

[Ashley]

It's a boohoo, feel bad for me book written by a whiny, narcissistic poor excuse for a female. It was unrelatable, boring and uninteresting.

[Dee]

It wasn't that I disliked the book, I just didn't feel the character or see her problems, uninteresting and left me feeling so what.

[Mae]

Nathalia wrote: "I do not hate the book, I just didn't enjoy it as much. For one, I did not really get what her problem is and why she really needs to travel to change herself. But alright... She goes travelling......"
Brava… totally agree with you. You best describe the reason why I did not love this book.

[Mae]

I think you women who disliked the book are all right. Because I disliked the book for basically the same reasons as most. Too whiny, to self centered… and to cliche. thank you for corroborating my opinion I was the only one in my group that did not like it.

[Kim]

It was apparent to me the author - yes, narcissistic and whiny - threw together a proposal thinking, how could I get someone else to pay for a kick-ass trip?

As a result, the whole book felt fake, forced and fantastical.

[Ellen]

Mae wrote: "I think you women who disliked the book are all right. Because I disliked the book for basically the same reasons as most. Too whiny, to self centered… and to cliche. thank you for corroborating..."
I was the only one in my group that disliked this book - so thank-you, Mae, for sharing. I found it really hard to put into words why I hated this book, so it really helps to read why other people disliked it.

[Vivienne]

Jazz wrote: "I am shocked to hear there are some people out there that don't like this book. We all can't like the same things in life but to say a book is awful is a bit drastic don't you think?

I saw the mov..."

[Vivienne]

I think the book is a lot better if you have seen the film which was great

[Sunsette]

Colleen wrote: "I really loved the book. I also read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and have heard similar complaints - well it's a memoir! And I don't know anybody who hasn't ..."

I agree with you, Colleen. I didn't hate the book. It's a memoir, so of course "it's all about me." It's a story of self-exploration and hope, and I found it inspiring.

[Kim]

I think "Wild" suffered from the same problem. I couldn't help but think she'd made the trip simply to publish a book about it.

[Serena]

I can't stand the book. The character was too whiny, self-centred. All the lovely places she went to are so cliched, she is not adding any new experience that the others haven't. Her foreign characters are so stereotyped that it is an insult to them. I am especially disappointed that after a whole year of trying to find herself, she found her happiness in a man....She hasn't done anything constructive or enlighting during a whole year of searching, basically achieved nothing but cliched self-gratification.

[Monty J]

Jazz wrote: "I am shocked to hear there are some people out there that don't like this book. We all can't like the same things in life but to say a book is awful is a bit drastic don't you think?"

My 2 cents:

It was the scene that went on an on about getting bitten by a mosquito that made me put it down the last time.

I've still got the book. It's in my "to be given away" box. I tried 4 times to read it wondering what the hubub was about. Borders hyped it like crazy. Now Borders is no more. Maybe that says something.

Maybe I'll try again. It's just that the writing is so immature that I can only take it in small doses and between attempts I lose interest in the "plot" such as it is.

Maybe it should be classified as a romance novel. Nothing against that genre; it's just not my reading fare.

Though Julia Roberts gave a very credible performance, the film felt shallow. Maybe because there was nothing new or revelatory, for me. I've been practicing yoga for decades. I've spent time in an ashram. I have no interest in "great food." Hedonism bores me.

[Per Wikipedia] "In early 2010, the feminist magazine Bitch published a critical review and social commentary called "Eat, Pray, Spend". Authors Joshunda Sanders and Diana Barnes-Brown wrote that 'Eat, Pray, Love is not the first book of its kind, but it is a perfect example of the genre of priv-lit: literature or media whose expressed goal is one of spiritual, existential, or philosophical enlightenment contingent upon women’s hard work, commitment, and patience, but whose actual barriers to entry are primarily financial. 'The genre, they argued, positions women as inherently and deeply flawed, and offers 'no real solutions for the astronomically high tariffs—both financial and social—that exclude all but the most fortunate among us from participating.'"

[Farah]

it took me ages to finish the book, although it's a good book it's just so boring..

[[deleted user]]

I loved the movie. The book, not so much, until the third section. Gilbert whines her way through Italy and India. It is not until Bali that she finds her voice and herself. Once she seriously started on her spiritual journey I was able to relate much more to her. I think the film worked because Julia Roberts captured the essence of Gilbert without the whine.