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 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher: Viking
Category: EBooks
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $9.00
You Save: $6.00 (40%)
Rating:  1622 reviews
Sales Rank: 31
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
ASIN: B000PDYVVG
Publication Date: April 11, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Easily the worst book I've read in years August 24, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
When I picked up this book, I expected to love it. I had heard nothing but good things and, being in something of a transitional stage in my own life, I thought it might help to read about another woman's journey. In the end, I couldn't even finish it, although I tried with a white-knuckled determination to do so. I usually cannot stop a book halfway through, even if I'm not enjoying it, but reading "Eat Pray Love" was like trying to enjoy a peaceful day outside while a four year-old hits you on the head every few seconds with a whiffle bat - fine at times, even enjoyable (after all, people have told you that this is a good thing), but with nagging little bursts of annoyance that finally drive you over the edge. I am just glad I got this book from the library.
It doesn't bother me too much that Elizabeth Gilbert received payment in advance from the publishers when she first pitched the idea of this book (although, I must say, I am a bit baffled that anyone with her mediocre writing ability was able to get a year's travel salary from a publisher in the first place). I can even learn to live with the fact that she includes endless phrases - nay, entire passages - in Italian, and then kindly translates them for us. This doesn't serve to make the book authentic in any way, even in the Italy portion, but rather comes across as a smug attempt to prove her ability with the language. As I said, that's mildly annoying, but I could learn to live with it if the content had been worth reading.
But here's the thing - it's not. At all. Gilbert's writing is affected and self-aware. Her many attempts at humor elicited, at most, a hollow groan from me as I read. She's self-absorbed, she's not funny, and she's not a particularly good writer. There's very little to recommend this book, on the whole. It doesn't even really have much to do with travel. As one other reviewer pointed out, she says at the beginning that she doesn't want to talk about her divorce, and then proceeds to occupy a good portion of the remaining prose with endless musings on why she left and how "un-selfish" she was, after all. I really am a sympathetic person, but reading this was just ridiculous. These are the childlike, completely un-mind-blowing "revelations" of a woman who collapses in tears at every opportunity. She can't even go to a friend's art showing without locking herself in the bathroom and trembling in panic at the thought that one day, she too might have a baby. It's not even the "baby factor" alone that really put me off in terms of Gilbert's personality. I don't want to have a baby, either, but I haven't written any books about it. It's simply that she sees everything and everyone as existing in the Elizabeth Gilbert universe. A friend comes to visit her in Rome and she refers to this person as her own personal lamp (the metaphor here is characteristically unoriginal and simultaneously completely dehumanizing to this other person for whom she professes to care).
Early in the book, when she decides to seek medical help for her depression, Gilbert actually brings her three previously published works with her to the psychiatrist's office and says, "I'm a writer. Don't mess up my brain." (Had anyone actually read anything she'd written before Eat Pray Love?) This insistent tendency toward self-praise (as in, "I can make friends with anyone, so I'll never have to be alone") is just one of many irksome qualities of Gilbert's writing.
In short, if you must read it, don't buy it - the library will do. If you can make it all the way through, good on you. But in my opinion, life is too short for bad literature, and baby, this is it.
 Intelligent, skillfully written & delightfully humorous August 21, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Attraversiamo, Elizabeth Gilbert's favorite Italian word, means "let's cross over" - and I really felt like I did - for the three days it took me to read the three sections of this charming work, I felt like I had crossed over into the parallel universe of this book and was walking beside the author as she set out on the most heroic voyage of all - the voyage of self-discovery.
I have to admit that the hype and negative reviews had nearly put me off - then I happened to read the online excerpt and it really helped me decide that this book was for me. Shimmering with wit, enthusiasm and wisdom, Gilbert has created a unique travelogue that charts both her physical and emotional quest for happiness.
I had expected some lame, whiny self-help type book, but instead I find a refreshing work that is equal parts profound, brutally honest and laugh-out-loud funny. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, (I'm not American, not divorced, not going through an existential crisis, and more of a skeptic than the protagonist is), if you have an open mind (esp about spiritual matters) and are able to put yourself in other people's shoes without getting all judgmental, you will definitely enjoy this journey as much as I did, and maybe even learn a few things about finding peace within yourself. And of course, about eating, praying and loving like you really mean it.
 Personal Journey not Book Review: Read with an Open Heart August 20, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I, too, agree that the previous reviews of this book have been about just that: the book instead of the journey of Ms. Gilbert through the lenses of an open mind and open heart.
Elizabeth takes a risk and puts herself out there by exposing to us all her struggles with food, spirituality and love. This book has created a love / hate relationship - there is really no in between...each you love it or you hate it. I loved it. She spoke to me. I divorced my husband for reasons people didn't understand, I battled with food for reasons people didn't understand and I have traveled the world for reasons people didn't understand. Each experience has opened my heart for which I am grateful.
To get out of your head and in to your heart is a journey in and of itself. From what I can understand and read in her book, Elizabeth has similar struggles and manages to love from her heart and be true to herself. Judging her struggles, for me, is not accepting of where she was, her journey and where she is now. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors - nor is it anyone else's business. Again, the fact that Elizabeth opens up her world to us is a gift in itself.
I read this book from the advice of my therapist who said this is one of the best books about loving from the heart that is not written by a therapist. I underlined and re-read so many sections in the book. One that stands out for me is something along the lines of "some people are as passionate about having children as I am about traveling..." FINALLY! Someone I can relate to and who is honest about her feelings; that it's ok to be a woman, divorce your husband, not want children, travel the world, immerse yourself in different cultures and in the end, understand love.
Bottom line - either you'll love it or you'll hate it. If you've been through a divorce, an eating disorder, a spiritual journey or traveled the world my hunch is this is a book for you. If not, read it with an open mind and open heart and accept where Elizabeth has been and where she is going...without judging her journey.
A Triune Triumph... and Clever too! August 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
You've got to love reading to read this through and enjoy it. You have to appreciate her search for the right word to describe her positioning, the right word to describe a city, and her feelings. And, it helps to love geography, spiritual-seeking and psychological understanding.
I liked it plenty kiver-to-kiver. Clever travelogue-seeker concept. Lots of good writing and research. Interesting topics. Just plain charming and quite intimate and feminine in tone. I thought that the author's nailing-down-of-her-feelings and love of words was exceptional. She was trying to work out and convey a lot with her story and it hit the mark. This is the kind of book that could have bogged down plenty of times in 330 pages but it never did. The engine of personal purpose and constant events and changing geographies pulled it forward. If 100 people took the same trip, there would be 100 very different books. She wrote her book and I'm the wiser for reading it. For me, this book was well worth it, a provocative and charming read over a couple of evenings.
If you didn't like it, you didn't get it. August 19, 2008
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
Several people I know have shared with me that they saw Gilbert as self-centered when they read this book. To them and others who feel this way, I must make the following points. First of all, you are reading a book specifically about a woman finding herself - do you expect it to not be about her? Second, the circumstances leading up to her year-long trip around the world were very telling of why her focus in this particular book is so narrow: she was trying to discover who she was as she was trying to pull herself out of a debilitating depression. Now, for those of you who haven't experienced this kind of self-doubt and helplessness, I am very glad for you. It is awful and not to be wished on anyone. The fact that she even had the desire to climb out of the dark hole that is depression and try to be proactive about her life again is entirely commendable and thrilling for me to see. So, when she goes on this trip, she is hoping to learn something about herself in each of these countries. She isn't claiming to have solved the world's problems or to have completely understood each culture, but she is taking the really good things from each place and incorporating them into her life, and in doing so is learning who she is and what she wants for herself. That is something that we all are and should be constantly engaged in. She has no illusions that everything about each country is all roses, that there is no poverty, corruption, prejudice, but that is not the topic of this book. It's really not a topic that you can begin to swallow when you are just getting your legs back under you. I found this book entertaining, inspiring, and a credible and accurate portrait of what it feels like to lose yourself and have to find it again. We may not all be able to travel around the world to do it, but I think that's why we are able to read such beautiful writing. She takes us to the places we cannot go. And I love her for it.
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