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 Lamott's hip, yoga-practicing, footloose younger sister") is poised to garner yet more adoring fans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64 in eBooks
• Published on: 2007-04-11
• Released on: 2007-04-11
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
At the age of thirty-one, Gilbert moved with her husband to the suburbs of New York and began trying to get pregnant, only to realize that she wanted neither a child nor a husband. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing." These destinations are all on the beaten track, but Gilbert's exuberance and her self-deprecating humor enliven the proceedings: recalling the first time she attempted to speak directly to God, she says, "It was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work.'"
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

From The Washington Post
The only thing wrong with this readable, funny memoir of a magazine writer's yearlong travels across the world in search of pleasure and balance is that it seems so much like a Jennifer Aniston movie. Like Jen, Liz is a plucky blond American woman in her thirties with no children and no major money worries. As the book opens, she is going through a really bad divorce and subsequent stormy rebound love affair. Awash in tears in the middle of the night on the floor of the bathroom, she begins to pray for guidance, "you know -- like, to God." God answers. He tells her to go back to bed. I started seeing the Star headlines: "Jen's New Faith!" "What Really Happened at the Ashram!" "Jen's Brazilian Sugar Daddy -- Exclusive Photos!" Please understand that Gilbert, whose earlier nonfiction book, The Last American Man, portrayed a contemporary frontiersman, is serious about her quest. But because she never leaves her self-deprecating humor at home, her journey out of depression and toward belief lacks a certain gravitas. The book is composed of 108 short chapters (based on the beads in a traditional Indian japa mala prayer necklace) that often come across as scenes in a movie. And however sad she feels or however deeply she experiences something, she can't seem to avoid dressing up her feelings in prose that can get too cute and too trite. On the other hand, she convinced me that she acquired more wisdom than most young American seekers -- and did it without peyote buttons or other classic hippie medicines. When Gilbert determines that she requires a year of healing, her first stop is Italy, because she feels she needs to immerse herself in a language and culture that worships pleasure and beauty. This sets the stage for a "Jen's Romp in Rome," where she studies Italian and, with newfound friends, searches for the best pizza in the world. It's a considerable achievement because she is still stalked by Depression and Loneliness, which she casts as "Pinkerton Detectives" -- Depression, the wise guy, and Loneliness, "the more sensitive cop." They frisk her, "empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying" and relentlessly interrogate her about why she thinks she deserves a vacation, considering what a mess she's made of her life. After literally eating herself out of depression, she returns to the United States for Christmas holidays. Next stop: the ashram. It seems Gilbert has been a student of yoga and meditation for years. Her rural Indian experience features Gilbert grappling mightily with some of the meditative practices. She finds quirky co-practitioners such as Richard from Texas, a former truck driver, alcoholic and Birkenstock dealer. Richard nicknames her "Groceries" because of her appetite at meals and offers wise advice. Picture Willie Nelson in a non-singing cameo role. Gilbert acknowledges that Americans have had difficulty accepting the idea of meditation and gurus, and she does a mostly fine job in making her ashram education accessible. She deftly sketches the physical stress of sitting in one position for hours, as well as the metaphysical stress of staying on message. Still, Gilbert sounds like a giddy teenager as she describes her relationship with Swamiji, the yogi who founded the ashram where she is studying: "I'm finding that all I want is Swamiji. All I feel is Swamiji.... It's the Swamiji channel, round the clock." The concluding 36 beads find Gilbert in Bali, palling around with an ageless medicine man who looks like Yoda, a Balinese mother and nurse, Wayan, who is a refugee from domestic violence, and other colorful characters. Gilbert is healed enough by now to render a really good deed: She raises $18,000 via e-mail from American friends for Wayan to buy a house. ("Jen: Bigger Do-Gooder Than Brad?") And after 18 months of self-imposed celibacy, she finds mature, truer love thanks to a charming older Brazilian businessman. Eat, Pray, Love as a whole actually is better than its 108 beads. By the time she and her lover sailed into a Bali sunset, Gilbert had won me over. She's a gutsy gal, this Liz, flaunting her psychic wounds and her search for faith in a pop-culture world, and her openness ultimately rises above its glib moments. Memo to Jen -- option this book. -- Grace Lichtenstein is a travel writer and author of six books who lives in New York and Santa Fe, N.M.

Reviewed by Grace Lichtenstein
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Love Hate Relationship
I was loaned this book from a neighbor who also told me that the author was a selfish, self absorbed sorry excuse for a woman...but she also added it is very interesting because of her travels...Thus began the love hate relationship for this book...
The authors style is witty but sometimes on the verge of droning. You want to read more about the mozzarella but then you endure through the self pity. The descriptions of Rome are enchanting as are the thoughts of leaving your life to simply learn a new language and indulge in a romantic culture, but then thoughts of ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands ,depression and then the wakeup call of "oh yeah I actually have a real life and it would be practically impossible strike that IMPOSSIBLE to actually be able to take 4 months and move to some place of my wishes just because I can't take it anymore"....
O.K. enough of the self pity in the book I think you get that already...I give it four stars simply because it allowed me to escape to that place that would be fun and maybe I have dreamt of, but I know I'll never do, nor want to do. She does explore those selfish ambition thoughts that creep into the mind of any young woman under the pressures of modern day society and she actually justifies them - well at least in her own mind she does. The book contains delightful insights and tips into cultures I will only dream of visiting and in the end I think she makes the reader grateful for your own normal or maybe not so normal life...At least maybe more normal than hers anyway. It would be interesting to see if her acquired self-peace actually sustains through a relationship on four different continents...somehow I wouldn't be surprised to find out in the end of her life or at least her current relationship she finds herself back on the bathroom floor sobbing.

Not for everyone but highly recommended for some of you!
I really enjoyed Eat Pray Love. I was shocked by how open the author was about her personal story. It's obviously not for everyone (see the range of reviews here) -- I think people who identify with some of the author's experiences will enjoy it more. I recommend giving it a try, if you do connect with her you'll probably find the story, and its lessons, very appealing and maybe even life-changing.

Hysterical, Insightful, A Great Read
This book was suggested to me by my friend, since she had recommended it I was expecting a story that I would enjoy. Before I finished the third page, I was in love. Gilbert's voice as a narrator is one of the most charming and engaging I've ever encountered, she shares with you her personal quest in such a way that also offers insight into your own life. I borrowed the book from the library first, but ordered it online soon after because this is definitely a book I'm going to want to read again.