|
| Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Viking
Category: EBooks
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $9.00
You Save: $6.00 (40%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  1730 reviews
Sales Rank: 63
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
|
| Customer Reviews:
 There are much better books on love journeys and healing June 29, 2006
175 out of 208 found this review helpful
"Eat Pray Love" can be compared to similar recent books by women who travel in the wake of devastating divorces, including "Around the World in 80 Dates," "An Italian Affair" and "A Thousand Days in Venice."
"Eat Pray Love" seems to have the most limited outlook of any of the books in this genre. It's not clear what was so awful about Elizabeth Gilbert's first husband, except for the fact that he wanted her to be the mother of his children. In the three comparable travel memoirs above, the husbands in each instance behaved in demonstrably reprehensible ways. None were guilty of creating a vague angst in their wives.
The author manages to _not_ have an affair in Italy, which may be a first for a female traveler given that Rome is the birthplace of women's sex tourism. (At least Gilbert admires the beauty of Rome's men.)
She does attend a soccer game and provides an amusing translation of old man's "flower-chain of curses" directed at the players.
Moving along to an ashram in India, Gilbert evolves spiritually after much effort to the point where she sees a blue light. This is a major "wow" for the author.
You can get through this section of the book fairly quickly by skimming paragraphs replete with the personal pronoun. If you see a lot of "I" this and "I" that, you are in a section on spiritual insight and can just move on.
In Bali, Gilbert, much like the author of "Tales of a Female Nomad," attaches herself to a local figure for an extended visit. She also falls in love with a Brazilian expat.
You can't beat love in Bali, so this to me was a partial payoff for wading through Gilbert's earlier "letters to God." This section is sexy and fun, with amusing repartee with her Indonesian friend Wayan about Gilbert's extended celibacy and a well-observed side story about Wayan's attempt to take advantage of Western donors who want to buy her a house of her own.
Despite the praiseworthy aspects of Eat Pray Love, there is a magazine slickness to the writing, a Manhattanite's myopia toward religion ("spirituality" is something to be pursued in an ashram, and defining "God" requires two pages of mushy verbiage) and politics (varied jabs at Republicans, all non-sequiturs).
Finally, the author (page 35) received an advance for this book, which makes it looks a little too pat how she enjoyed food in Italy, spirituality in India and love in Indonesia. All happens according to plan, or more precisely, the book proposal. Fortunately she met her Brazilian love Felipe in Bali or else the publisher might have been disappointed!
With Gilbert's book structure apparently hinging on finding love in her third destination, Indonesia, Eat Pray Love ultimately comes across as somewhat false compared to other memoirs of love affairs involving traveling women. Other authors traveled first, fell in love, wrote later, and then found a publisher.
Eat Pray Love started with the publisher's advance, and then Gilbert's travels apparently fell right in step with her book proposal. Travel's unpredictability never seems to have entered a too-perfect world.
Expected more. MUCH more. March 19, 2007
171 out of 201 found this review helpful
This book reminded me of a quote that's served me well in life: "It's a sign of maturity when you begin to fall out of love with your own drama." The author clearly hasn't reached this stage on her path to "enlightenment"!
Blah, blah, blah, blah.... October 24, 2007
168 out of 192 found this review helpful
I could not finish this book. When the author burst into sobs yet again in the middle of prayer, or a conversation, or walking down the street, or (more likely) on the floor of yet another bathroom, I gave up. This is the type of person you meet at a cocktail party and RUN in the other direction after a few minutes when she starts spewing out all her problems at you with no end in sight. Note to the author: I am your reader, not your psychotherapist. I really tried to enjoy the book and even like the author, but after slogging through a couple hundred pages of endlessly self-absorbed chatter, I was worn out and put the book in the Goodwill pile. When she writes, "I discovered my mind was not a very interesting place to be," I have to say, "Amen, sister!"
This Book Annoyed Me Immensely February 6, 2007
130 out of 164 found this review helpful
Desperate for something good to read after finishing 'Notes on a Scandal' (one of the best books I've read in a long time, possibly ever), I picked up this pile of twaddle in the local book store. I should have realized that the author would have about as much insight into depression, loneliness and feelings of alienation as a clam. You can't feel sorry for the author because she seems to have brought on her malaise almost entirely on herself.. Oh, that's OK honey, you take the house and the apartment that I paid for because I feel "guilty" about leaving you... Please! Is she deliberately trying to set the Women's Lib movement back 100 years?? This attitude is all very touchy feely, 'Yes, I'll take all the guilt and blame for something that isn't entirely my fault because society dictates that I'm supposed to be the submissive gender', but hardly a practical way to live in the REAL WORLD, which the author clearly has no clue about doing. She really has no reason to be depressed given the luck at being able to afford to travel to places most people dream about visiting once in their life, and all expenses paid! Not surprisingly, she really doesn't sound very depressed, we all cried and felt anxious after 9/11..Most women have battled with loneliness and depression, but most are forced to continue in their lives looking after families or children, or just struggling to keep a roof over their head. I bet, if you gave most of these women an all expenses paid trip to Italy they would start to feel better, without the help of a nasty cocktail of antidepressents like she was taking (I counted four different kinds, yikes!).
In short, this book is not funny, or insightful, or challenging. Mostly it's just a series of obvious to the point of being cliched observations about breaking up and traveling in a foreign country. I honestly looked for more depth but it simply wasn't there. Please go eat some more gelato, and please, don't write any "voyage of self discovery books" again. Well, do, if there is a market for this stuff, but I'm personally amazed that any self respecting modern female would find this book anything but insulting.
 A lovely, lovely find... October 12, 2006
120 out of 152 found this review helpful
I heard this book discussed briefly earlier this year on the Today Show and decided to order it since, at the time, I was in the throws of my own divorce. Ms. Gilbert chronicles her international journey of self-discovery with such amazing detail and tenderness and humor that I recommend this book to anyone who has found him or herself in a place or state that he or she would like to change or leave (I imagine, that's everyone!). The story is engrossing and the writing is skillful. I couldn't put it down, and I feel more empowered to follow my own dreams and heart after finishing the book. That's 5-star material if I've ever seen it.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
