Book Review for: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

This book is for you if you have ever dreamt of just walking away from your life – forever! It is for you if you have ever felt you were with the wrong person; stuck in the job-from-hell or trapped in someone else’s hideous existence!

Elizabeth Gilbert found herself locked in her bathroom one night, doing some serious crying, after realising that despite her seemingly ‘perfect life’ she didn’t want a baby, she didn’t want to be with her husband and she knew there had to be something better ‘out there’.

Eat Pray Love is a true life diary of her journey, beginning with leaving her husband, spending a glorious six months in Italy, a rigorous sojourn at an ashram in India and a final retreat in Bali.

Elizabeth’s writing is fluid and descriptive and her mouthwatering details of meals in Italy will have you booking the next flight! I will definitely be writing down the names of the many restaurants and locations she visited while staying there – most of them are off the normal tourist route and sound fantastic!

Her stay in India will bring to life the extreme heat and dryness of that country and the harsh conditions of the ashram she stayed in. You can really feel her torment at chanting a particularly difficult mantra which she isn’t required to do, but nevertheless persists, with spectacular results. The characters she meets at the ashram come from all over the world and all of them add depth and colour to her stay there.

The first sections of the book are real page turners and are riveting and exciting to read. But I did find the final part of the book which covers the last part of Elizabeth’s trip in Bali a little monotonous.

Elizabeth’s time in Bali marked the end of her old life and the beginning of her new one and this is reflected in her writing which is dull and slightly irritating.

You also meet a character that Elizabeth befriends and helps in Bali and who I found really insufferable. I didn’t want to read about this person at all.

Elizabeth also mentions God frequently in the book, and writes about what God is to her and what part He is playing in this whole shift in her life. Sometimes, she went on a little too much about this and I did find myself skimming over a few of the pages.

Overall, this was a real winner for me until the last final pages of the Bali section.

I would love to read about the next chapter in Elizabeth’s life, to see what she is up to now.

She is courageous and strong and I hope she is happy.

Rating: 6.5/10

If you'd like to buy ‘Eat Pray Love’, click one of the links below to order from your favourite online bookstore:

Siobhan
September 2006

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