Book Review: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 10:27AM 
This book has proven to be an interesting phenomenon. Over the past year I've heard a lot about it. Like when movie reaches the pinnacle of popularity, I started wondering if I needed to read it, I had heard so much. Several people recommended it. A couple friends told me not t bother. The interesting point was that even people who didn't like it talked about it. That was compelling enough a reason to give it a try.
If you don't already know the story, Elizabeth Gilbert had the life everyone wants: successful career, beautiful home, a marriage to a successful man. But she was unhappy - and there's a unique unhappiness that goes along with having "everything" and not feeling satisfied. She decided to give it all up. After a trying divorce and a new romance she decides to take a year to herself.
Spending a year abroad, she spends time in Rome, Mumbai and Bali. Each new environment provides a different nurturing element for her soul. It's a journey of self-discovery, less than it is a discovery of her new homes. She wrestles with meditation, her concepts of love, and her own insecurities. She shares the hardest lessons she learns. Everything is exposed.
I expected the book to be more exploratory and introspective - focusing more on her surroundings than her thought process. And at first, I wasn't sure if I wanted to share her personal thoughts. But as the book progressed I came to enjoy Elizabeth finding what it is to be Elizabeth. The travel wasn't the hardest part of the journey, finding herself was.
Reader Comments (1)
Surprise, Florence--I have left a couple of awards for your blog here:
http://willoaksstudio.blogspot.com/2009/08/some-fun-odds-and-ends.html