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Eat Pray Love One Womans Search for Everything Across Italy India and Indonesia

Eat Pray Love One Womans Search for Everything Across Italy India and Indonesia

Starred Review. Gilbert (The Last American Man) grafts the structure of romantic fiction upon the inquiries of reporting in this sprawling yet methodical travelogue of soul-searching and self-discovery. Plagued with despair after a nasty divorce, the author, in her early 30s, divides a year equally among three dissimilar countries, exploring her competing urges for earthly delights and divine transcendence. First, pleasure: savoring Italy’s buffet of delights–the world’s best pizza, free-flowing wine and dashing conversation partners–Gilbert consumes la dolce vita as spiritual succor. “I came to Italy pinched and thin,” she writes, but soon fills out in waist and soul. Then, prayer and ascetic rigor: seeking communion with the divine at a sacred ashram in India, Gilbert emulates the ways of yogis in grueling hours of meditation, struggling to still her churning mind. Finally, a balancing act in Bali, where Gilbert tries for equipoise “betwixt and between” realms, studies with a merry medicine man and plunges into a charged love affair. Sustaining a chatty, conspiratorial tone, Gilbert fully engages readers in the year’s cultural and emotional tapestry–conveying rapture with infectious brio, recalling anguish with touching candor–as she details her exotic tableau with history, anecdote and impression.
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User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Eat, Pray, and Love your way into peacefulness
I think that this was an abolutely beautiful book. It’s about one woman’s SELF-discovery, so of course it’s all about her! But she’s a woman that you can relate to. I completely understood her wanting to learn to speak Italian just because she wanted to, and learning how to relax and become content with yourself. In Bali, I felt her fear of getting involved with men again and thereby risking her newfound freedom and happiness. While there is an awful lot of religious and spiritual discusson in this book, it is not preachy. It’s just interesting, and sometimes funny.

This book makes me desperately want to go to Italy, Bali, anywhere, just to get a taste of the bliss and peace of mind that she has found.

5 Stars An affirming and encouraging book
Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing is a pleasure and this memoir was a deeply affirming and encouraging message to me.

5 Stars Searching for a Life
This is one of the few books I will reread. Like the author, I am in the middle of a “down” period in my life and the reminder of the classic ways out of the dark days and nights come at a good time for me. You must learn to love yourself first, ergo the good food and pretty undies to remind yourself that life can be good. You must quiet yourself down enough to pray and then you can again start to love others.

I read all the complaints about the book being too much about I amd me. Well, it’s darn near impossible to think otherwise when you are in that much pain. It’s like being a toddler again. She went through stages and grew up. That seems to be the point of it all.

3 Stars A Good Read!
I actually enjoyed the book Eat Pray Love. I almost didn’t buy the book after reading the reviews here on Amazon but I rarely travel and was in the mood for a vicarious read about a woman who gets to travel to Italy, India, and Indonesia and spend a year enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle doing virtually nothing. It’s true that the author is incredibly self absorbed and very depressed and overly detailed oriented. I thought the book would be a nice light read but it was actually quite an intense book.

Elizabeth Gilbert mixes well with native people from all the countries she visits and gives a realistic look at life in each country and each people’s way of life. She brings each country to life and shows how each country is so different from each other. Her stories are amazing and the book is a memoir about a wonderful year and how she brings herself back to happiness and fulfillment after a crushing divorce and financial loss.

I really enjoyed this book and the third part of the book about Bali, Indonesia was the most enjoyable part for me.

4 Stars Bella Online Business Travel Editor Reviewed this Book
Eat Pray Love Your Business Trips

Every trip I take, I try to create a memory. Maybe staying at a new hotel, trying a new restaurant, or taking in the local scenery. Even when I am stuck in Newark, New Jersey (no offense to Newarkians) in the dead of winter, I try to make the experience stick. Likewise, the author of the book “Eat Pray Love” documents the ultimate business trip, with the most amazing memories created in the most basic places like a train station, a post office, a cyber cafe. The result is an inspiring way to approach your business trips, or even just a good read for the flight.

The author of Eat Pray Love, is, well, an author. Meaning, that is her business and her livlihood. Elizabeth Gilbert had a career writing for different magazines and even had a few books under her belt when she departed on her journey that became “Eat Pray Love”. She traveled for business, just like the rest of us. However, her job was to write about her experiences. So after enduring a devastating personal crisis, she got back to work with the intention of writing about the business trip of a lifetime. The journey included three destinations for three months each, to perform three separate tasks. She went to Italy to eat, to India to pray, and to Indonesia to learn to love herself again.

Naturally, most business travelers aren’t in the business of eating for a living or praying in an ashram as a source of income. Unlike Ms. Gilbert whose job for the first three months of her project consisted of writing about seeking and finding the best food in Italy, and the experience of eating and enjoying it. Unfortunatley, most of us have different responsibilities each day on our business travels (and aren’t we jealous?). Yet, this book captures the best and the worst of all travel. Between getting lost, dealing with poor mail service, being out of touch with family back home, it’s all the same, no matter what your job is and to where you travel. Yet having the opportunity to see or do something you would never have the opportunity to experience had your job not taken you to wherever you find yourself, should be apreciated. The message is: Seize the day.

This book is written with such a quick wit and with such honesty, it feels like reading a stand up comedian’s performance with a message at the end. The descriptions of each country, and the art of enjoying the simple pleasures of each day will make you want to ring the concierge and ask where to get the best local dish wherever you find yourself landing. Enjoy your destination and milk it for all it’s worth. Life is short.

Or, take a moment to strike up a conversation with a resident of wherever you find yourself on business this week. Many people do not get the opportunities we have as business travelers. We are making money while exploring, just as paid authors like Ms. Gilbert are doing. Ok, so we aren’t being paid to discover the pizza, ice cream and attitude of Naples. I challenge you to mentally write your own mini novel at the end of each day of your next business trip. You might be surprised what you think to yourself.

“Eat Pray Love” also takes a funny and introspective look at the art and the act of meditating. I found this to be a strangely educational aspect of the book, especially for someone who travels for a living. We all have time to get inside our own head on long trips, and we may need to depending on the stress of our jobs causing us to travel. This book may inspire you to attempt to learn how to quiet your mind while surrounded by chaos as it did me. Quieting the mind is an especially useful goal and skill on the road with the inconveniences and discomforts we all endure that make us want to scream.

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