| | Eat, Pray, Love |  | Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher: Viking
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1692 reviews
Sales Rank: 1292582
Media: Paperback
Pages: 334
ISBN: 0739474189
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780786553808
ASIN: 0786553804
Publication Date: February 16, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | Paperback - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | | • | Perfect Paperback - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (International Export Edition) | | • | Hardcover - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | | • | Paperback - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India And Indonesia | | • | Paperback - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything | | • | Paperback - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | | • | Paperback - Eat, Pray, Love | | • | Hardcover - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | | • | Unknown Binding - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | | • | Paperback - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | | • | Audio Download - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia (Unabridged) | | • | Kindle Edition - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | | • | Audio CD - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia |
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Product Description
This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures, Gilbert explored the art of pleasure in Italy and the art of devotion in India, and then a balance between the two on the Indonesian island of Bali. By turns rapturous and rueful, this wise and funny author (whom Booklist calls Anne Lamotts hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1687 more reviews...
 Would be zero stars if I had that option! October 1, 2007
1545 out of 1936 found this review helpful
Despite a great title and a decent premise, this book is both disappointing and aggravating from beginning to end. The author is self-absorbed and irritating, and her 'insights' into the people she meets and the places she goes are shallow and annoying. The endless reflection on the horror of a marriage that didn't seem that horrible to me, and the quest for spirituality that has Gilbert chatting with God in India made finishing this book a torment. Finding out that she got the book advance before heading out on her journey made total sense; the trip fit into the book proposal rather than the other way around. The fact that her giant spiritual journey to learn how to be alone ends with her pairing up with a Brazilian expat was the final straw; I certainly don't believe she grew or learned anything at all about herself on this quest. Get this book from the library if you have to read it; I'm seriously annoyed that I helped fund this venture by spending money on this drivel!
Disappointing June 19, 2007
795 out of 961 found this review helpful
I had seen all the good reviews on this book and since I am an avid traveler and reader, I was excited to read a memoir from an excellent writer. I was sorely disappointed.
Foremost, I did not even finish the book which is rare for me. I made it halfway through India before I was so disheartened by Ms. Gilbert's narrative voice. There is a difference between sounding funny, candid and likable and sounding petty, conceited and fickle.
While I was reading this book I was genuinely surprised by the lack of empathy Ms. Gilbert had for anyone. Every situation, every comment, every sidestory pointed squarely to herself and her personal problems. I was shocked that she had lived in Rome and India for months and had not been affected by the poverty and corruption. I suppose if you are so caught up in your own problems and all your own shopping and eating that it's difficult to understand that other people around you have far worse problems. Maybe, just maybe looking outside of yourself and giving of yourself you will find self-worth and purpose, self-worth that goes beyond buying new underwear or eating a gorgeous meal or bragging about having a meditation high.
If you want to read a real journey of discovery, love, Italy and food, I would highly recommend Marlena De Blasi's A Thousand Days in Venice. Her narrative voice is far superior and she reveals larger truths from her personal experiences while getting to really know the local people and appreciating their culture.
WASTE OF MY TIME!!! June 5, 2007
502 out of 657 found this review helpful
I am dumbstruck that so many reviewers enjoyed this book. I have always wanted to do a similar trip myself, a trip I also called my "i" trip that additionally included Ireland and Israel. My trip will wait until I finish raising my small children, so I was hopeful she could transport me a little. In fact, I was excited to read of her experiences, insights, thoughts, adventures. As a suburban mom and freelancer who chose the life she opted out of for now (and how liucky I am to have that choice), I was still curious to learn what scared her about motherhood, what drew her to work and travel and how she would eventually deal with a possible balance. I am hopeful to support women who make unique choices and are willing to explore them. Only what she offered was, well, nothing.
She is the most vapid, narcicistic, insecure, self-absorbed, spoiled brat I have ever had to listen to. I could not wait to get her whiny, foolish voice out of my head. I only finished this book because it was a selection in my book group, the group hated it as it turns out. Has this women ever thought about someone other than herself? If she has an insight about divorce or relationships or even how to give and receive love she certainly forgot to share it with her readers. She didn't show struggle or conflict or self-reflection about societies pressures versus internal longings. It sounds like she just got bored and cried a lot.
Am I supposed to take her word for it that her marriage was unsalvagable and her husband so unworthy that she was smart to leave him? Did he abuse her? Hate her? cheat on her? drink? do drugs? Was he depressed -- or was that just her? She decided not to tell us why she would walk out and give up on a marriage. She isn't really deep enough to look at why she would abandon a person she promised to stick by. She doesn't explain her calling, her needs. Acutally she doesn't seem to learn anything. Or teach anything about the human condition or self-dicovery or how depression affects loved ones. Hard to like her -- or even want to read her -- at all when all she prattles on about is her weight fluctiations. Uh, when she finally gets to the third world country of India I wondered if she noticed the poverty and hunger? No, she complains instead about how hard it is to sit quietly in a room. I practice yoga myself and I think all her meditiation seems to have missed the point. Settle down, get centered sure, but then GO out and HELP someone, you creep!!! For awhile I thought this woman should, in fact, have a kid if only to teach her how to think about someone other than herself. But then I thought, maybe not. Might be too hard for her and then what? Jet off to Iraq to write about, say, army food, and abandon yet againj???
If you have any insights of your own about the world we share and how to share with others in it, do not bother reading Ms. Gilberts book. There is nothing valuable there to find, outside of a silly, spoiled girls daily planner of what she did today and who she has a crush on. ugh. better to watch Sex and The City reruns!
She seemed really proud of how good she is at making friends. I wondered how genuine she is or just glad to collect people like stamps or glass animals. I am certain I would not be her friend. I really could not stand her.
 HER OWN SEARCH - HER OWN VOICE, BOTH IMPRESSIVE February 26, 2006
363 out of 568 found this review helpful
Reading the subtitle of Elizabeth Gilbert's latest book, "One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia," one can only think well, she certainly knows where to look! Also, upon learning that this is her chosen way of recovering from a particularly acrimonious divorce and a trying-to-make-up-for-that-loss romance that didn't work, we might think how fortunate she is to able to seek solace in such intriguing places.
Whatever our opinion of her reasons for this journey it has been established that she's a super writer (The Last American Man), and she brings all of her wit, intellect and stylish pen to Eat Pray Love. More than that, she brought a great deal of courage to her chosen task of traveling the world alone at the age of 34. She felt she needed a dramatic change, and it may be that she has found it.
It's a pleasure to listen to this memoir/travelogue in her voice. Many will associate with her initial confession that she's not a very good traveler in that she suffers from various digestive interruptions. However, on the plus side she easily makes friends with anyone. As she puts it, "I can make friends with the dead." Or, if there isn't anyone around she claims that she could chat with a pile of Sheetrock. Whatever the case, she is a very lucky lady as her travel experiences prove.
No Viva Italia for Italy because of Messina, a port town in Sicily that she describes as "scary and suspicious." Perhaps that's one reason why she's lonely and depressed there. But things definitely take a turn for the better in India and Indonesia, although her meditation needs a little more work.
Did Gilbert find what she was searching for? Listeners may not be too sure but they'll certainly enjoy the trip!
- Gail Cooke
AMAZING!!! April 3, 2006
214 out of 309 found this review helpful
This book transends genres to be a memoir, travel guide, self help, and philosophy book. For anyone that ever wanted to find their own path, this book is for you! Elizabeth Gilbert's writing is down to earth, funny, smart, and like the cool best friend you always wanted to be like. Buy the book, Its a great journey!
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