I was able to buy a copy of Eat Pray Love with gift certificates I earned through my Swagbucks. Here are my thoughts on the book:
Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love is a collection on 108 tales strung together by Gilbert’s insights and humor. The novel, as you may know from the major motion picture, documents her adventures as she travels across Italy, India and Indonesia in an attempt to recover from her divorce and subsequent fling and in the end reassemble herself as the person she wants to be.
She travels to Italy to indulge herself with pleasure- good food, learning a beautiful language, and going the places she wants to go, all with little to no responsibility. In Italy, she begins her healing process. Moving onto India, Gilbert studies mediation through yoga. She becomes in tune with her God and her inner self. Afterwards, she finds balance in Bali when she helps her new friend buy a home, and falls in love with Brazilian expatriate.
Whether it was the high expectations created from the hype, or the “each tale a bead on the japa mala” writing style employed, I waked away from Eat Pray Love, a bit disappointed. There was a good story, a good message, but I didn’t feel as consumed by the words as I like to feel when reading for pleasure. (I like to think that it wasn’t the novels fault, but mine, I came to the book expecting impossibly too much from all of the talk I’d heard about both the book and movie.) Perhaps, that was the intended effect, to get you to think more about the book’s messages than to take you along on a ride, with the only expectation for you is to sit back and enjoy the ride. If that’s the goal, then I’d say the book succeeded. Either way, I think Eat Pray Love is worth a shot- maybe you’ll learn something.
Have you read it? What did you think? Have you seen the movie? Is it good?
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I liked the book. I try not to read too many reviews or be swayed by opinions before I give myself a chance to read the content, I find that its hard not to be biased after being infiltrated. I was satisfied with each country/experience and I could see how each one affected her differently, and how she matured through each place.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I would consider watching the movie would be to see the places in color, but I have no doubt in my mind I will always find the book better than the movie.
I want to recommend a book I just finished this week called 'Little Bee'...for more info, check my blog, as I've reviewed it as well.
I started reading the book and couldn't finish it. It was around the time that every one was reading it and she was on Oprah but I just didn't like it.
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