Eat Pray Love

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert







Liz Gilbert, in a time of crisis, decides that she will travel the three I's, Italy, India and Indonesia learning about pleasure, meditation and balance. She has just come from a nasty and long divorce, intermingled with an on again off again, highly emotional relationship with a boyfriend.

In Italy Liz eats herself blind. She indulges in pasta, pizza and gilato. She also learns to speak the lovely language....Italian.

In India she lives in an Ashram with learning to meditate. She struggles through learning to calm herself enough to be able to meditate.

In Indonesia Liz hooks up with an elderly medicine man and a young medicine woman. She tries to learn about balance in her life. She also takes a lover.

Liz is witty, hysterical and so personable. I love her 'voice' and writing style. This book was so easy to read. I had my doubts though considering how popular it was and most of the time I disagree with the general population.

Like most of America Liz is a little warped with selfcenteredness. She definitely travels the three I's meaning she really thinks A LOT about herself. I know most of us tend to do this, but it was strikingly apparent that most of her problems stem from only indulging in herself.
I enjoyed her time in Italy almost as much as she did and her humor always won me over. I loved learning so much about the countries she traveled to, which surprised me a little. I'm not much of a travel log reading kind of girl.

I had a harder time with India, but then, so did she. This is where I really started to realize that she was looking for God, but only if He would let her abide by her own set of rules. There were some deep thought provoking moments though. Her emotional struggle really intensified here. She needed to think about someone else besides herself for awhile and I think she would have pulled through a lot faster. As it was she spent all of her time completely in her head and torturing herself. This is why I don't meditate. I would make myself miserable. I think she did hit upon some good advice and 'truth'.

Indonesia is where it started to unravel a little. She went to spend time with this wise old sage she had met a few years previous. She literally just showed up in Bali to hang out with him for four months after having met him once. Gutsy. I have to say that was something I really admired her for. She flew by the seat of her pants and experienced so much, in so many places. Liz hung out with the old man and also met a medicine woman that she had a lot in common with. For a brief second Liz thought about someone else and helped this woman and her children in an awesome way...........although she didn't have to work too hard to do it. She also finally succumbed and took a lover. She seemed pretty happy about it, but that is where the discovery and 'truth' finding sort of fell apart.


Rating 4 I did really like Liz and her sense of humor. I learned about three countries, religion, meditation and yoga. I felt like there were some good nuggets to think about.


Rating PG 13 A situation of 'self discovery' that I wasn't wild to read about.