Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert on Do the 2009 TBR challenge on 43 Things

Do the 2009 TBR challenge (read all 16 entries…)

Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert 4 months ago

This is the 2nd time I’ve read this book. I read it not long after it came out and I couldn’t really work out what all the fuss was about. I thought I should give it another shot.

I know most people rave about this book (including Oprah) but apart from the section on Bali which I found enjoyable my opinion hasn’t changed from last time. I can’t put my finger on why. The writing was ok, she seems nice enough… Maybe some books and some people just don’t go togther.

Aug 05, 12:47AM PDT | 11 cheers

Comments:

bookish

ya i agree with you about the proper mix of books n' peeps

i happen to love Eat Pray Love even though i’m normally quite leery of books by westerners who find their spiritual path in India. (I guess it’s a knee jerk reaction to feeling exoticized.)

But for some reason, to me Elizabeth Gilbert comes across as the genuine article, despite her rather breezy confessional style… Perhaps her book resonates with me because I too feel like a constant seeker…

What you say is true… the book needs to speak to you, the reader, with what is going on in your heart and mind and life

Aug 05, 01:29AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 12 cheers

Picasso's Muse

I tried!!

That’s why I thought I should try again with it. Maybe I wasn’t in the right place when I read it the first time. But I mustn’t be again either. And the likelihood is that I won’t ever be.

I actually like her writing style. She’s very honest and self deprecating. I thought Richard from Texas was a hoot! He made that India section so much more tolerable. I’ll be interested to see who they have lined up to play him in the movie.

Aug 05, 01:55AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 4 cheers

HavanaCat is traveling though time and will return last week

three thumbs down for Gilbert's Eat...

I read the book, and so did a couple of my girlfriends. We all came to the same conclusions, which weren’t favorable. Actually, one these girlfriends couldn’t finish it. She wrote to me, “The luxury of being able to not only leave your husband, but then be the one to travel the world “finding” yourself!! AND Get paid to do it?? Give me a break!!!!!! If anyone should have gotten to leave New York, it should’ve been the poor ex husband who was left behind wondering what the hell he did wrong!! I have zero sympathy for her and her plight, I think her book is crap, her situation is crap and totally self-created.” My other friend thought reading the book was like eating a big gooey sickly sweet dessert. I thought Elizabeth Gilbert was too self-deprecating, too self-absorbed, and the prince charming ending with the smarmy guy in Bali she fell in love with, and details about her urinary tract infection and them making love…barf…so there are three thumbs down for this book. And of course Julia Roberts is going to play her…who else? ha hahahahaha! I did love Richard from Texas though. Although he probably didn’t exist and she needed a foil to temper the ‘finding herself’ shtick, the writing for him was a hoot!

Aug 09, 02:14PM PDT | Respond to this 1 cheer

TangerineRose celebrates 2yrs of 43Things :)

I was recently thinking

about reading this book after a friend told me about it. I had seen it so many times in bookshops, but there is something I find distinctly unappealing about the book’s cover (I know perhaps I shouldn’t, but I do judge books by their cover sometimes!)
I have been to the eat and pray countries, but travel to the love country has eluded me so far!

Aug 05, 07:24AM PDT | Respond to this 1 cheer

Pippi Langstrumpf

I felt exactly the same way. I didn’t think it was thoroughly fascinating and didn’t feel at all compelled to keep reading. I was a bit disappointed too because people rave about this book.

Aug 07, 08:12PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

Picasso's Muse