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Gag Gifts, Occasion Gifts - Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
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List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $9.00
Your Save: $ 6.00 ( 40% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
EAN: 9780143038412
ISBN: 0143038419
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2007-01-30
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Editorial Reviews:
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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 Lamott’s hip, yoga- practicing, footloose younger sister”) is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!!
Comment: did i mentioned that loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!! loved it!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Worst Book Ever
Comment: This is the worst book ever. The first 20 pages are ridiculous, ridiculously awful. Please read the first 20 pages just to see for yourself why this book never should have been written. But certainly don't buy the book, just steal it from someone who is halfway through and pretending to like it. This action will complete the true purpose of the book, to bring joy to those who appreciate its terribleness and unhappiness to those self obsessed individuals who have deluded themselves into thinking this book is worth more than a laugh and a scoff.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, not great.
Comment: By all rites I should have adored this book. The premise is great, but I found the delivery lacked. In a way, I'm disappointed I bought this book because all I did was finance her travels. Maybe I can get my $ back and put it toward a fund to travel myself?
Besically, the book seemed a forced and the author seemed a little shallow and self-righteous. The great title attracted me to this book, but after reading it I got the feeling Ms. Gilbert may have come up with a great title and then tried to write a book around it.
All that said, it was a fairly interesting read (though it did stall at times). I really didn't dislike the book, it definitely deserves 3 stars, I'm just having trouble coming up with good things to say about it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Easily the worst book I've read in years
Comment: When I picked up this book, I expected to love it. I had heard nothing but good things and, being in something of a transitional stage in my own life, I thought it might help to read about another woman's journey. In the end, I couldn't even finish it, although I tried with a white-knuckled determination to do so. I usually cannot stop a book halfway through, even if I'm not enjoying it, but reading "Eat Pray Love" was like trying to enjoy a peaceful day outside while a four year-old hits you on the head every few seconds with a whiffle bat - fine at times, even enjoyable (after all, people have told you that this is a good thing), but with nagging little bursts of annoyance that finally drive you over the edge. I am just glad I got this book from the library.
It doesn't bother me too much that Elizabeth Gilbert received payment in advance from the publishers when she first pitched the idea of this book (although, I must say, I am a bit baffled that anyone with her mediocre writing ability was able to get a year's travel salary from a publisher in the first place). I can even learn to live with the fact that she includes endless phrases - nay, entire passages - in Italian, and then kindly translates them for us. This doesn't serve to make the book authentic in any way, even in the Italy portion, but rather comes across as a smug attempt to prove her ability with the language. As I said, that's mildly annoying, but I could learn to live with it if the content had been worth reading.
But here's the thing - it's not. At all. Gilbert's writing is affected and self-aware. Her many attempts at humor elicited, at most, a hollow groan from me as I read. She's self-absorbed, she's not funny, and she's not a particularly good writer. There's very little to recommend this book, on the whole. It doesn't even really have much to do with travel. As one other reviewer pointed out, she says at the beginning that she doesn't want to talk about her divorce, and then proceeds to occupy a good portion of the remaining prose with endless musings on why she left and how "un-selfish" she was, after all. I really am a sympathetic person, but reading this was just ridiculous. These are the childlike, completely un-mind-blowing "revelations" of a woman who collapses in tears at every opportunity. She can't even go to a friend's art showing without locking herself in the bathroom and trembling in panic at the thought that one day, she too might have a baby. It's not even the "baby factor" alone that really put me off in terms of Gilbert's personality. I don't want to have a baby, either, but I haven't written any books about it. It's simply that she sees everything and everyone as existing in the Elizabeth Gilbert universe. A friend comes to visit her in Rome and she refers to this person as her own personal lamp (the metaphor here is characteristically unoriginal and simultaneously completely dehumanizing to this other person for whom she professes to care).
Early in the book, when she decides to seek medical help for her depression, Gilbert actually brings her three previously published works with her to the psychiatrist's office and says, "I'm a writer. Don't mess up my brain." (Had anyone actually read anything she'd written before Eat Pray Love?) This insistent tendency toward self-praise (as in, "I can make friends with anyone, so I'll never have to be alone") is just one of many irksome qualities of Gilbert's writing.
In short, if you must read it, don't buy it - the library will do. If you can make it all the way through, good on you. But in my opinion, life is too short for bad literature, and baby, this is it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, skillfully written & delightfully humorous
Comment: Attraversiamo, Elizabeth Gilbert's favorite Italian word, means "let's cross over" - and I really felt like I did - for the three days it took me to read the three sections of this charming work, I felt like I had crossed over into the parallel universe of this book and was walking beside the author as she set out on the most heroic voyage of all - the voyage of self-discovery.
I have to admit that the hype and negative reviews had nearly put me off - then I happened to read the online excerpt and it really helped me decide that this book was for me. Shimmering with wit, enthusiasm and wisdom, Gilbert has created a unique travelogue that charts both her physical and emotional quest for happiness.
I had expected some lame, whiny self-help type book, but instead I find a refreshing work that is equal parts profound, brutally honest and laugh-out-loud funny. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, (I'm not American, not divorced, not going through an existential crisis, and more of a skeptic than the protagonist is), if you have an open mind (esp about spiritual matters) and are able to put yourself in other people's shoes without getting all judgmental, you will definitely enjoy this journey as much as I did, and maybe even learn a few things about finding peace within yourself. And of course, about eating, praying and loving like you really mean it.
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