Eat, Pray, Love

A relative gave Eat, Pray, Love to me this Christmas and I finally finished it. Everyone, apparently, is ga ga over this book and its been on many best seller lists. I was told some people had a hard time getting into it but then just loved it. I had a hard time getting into it and kept waiting for the point when I couldn't put it down, which didn't happen for me. I thought, perhaps, my relative had purchased this book intending that I read it and gain insight on some aspect of my life. Or that it might have suggestions I might use to become more in tune with myself. I came to realize, however, that this is not a self-help book. It is more of a travel/adventure book telling of her travels and experiences in different countries and as that type of book, it is interesting.

Elizabeth Gilbert has the resources as a writer to visit countries and enjoy them to the utmost, it seems, without time restraints or money worries. So right off the bat, most of us cannot follow in her footsteps. As the title suggests, her first chapters deal with the wonderful food in Italy, her quest for enlightenment with gurus and prayer in India, in the middle chapters, and in the end - love in Bali.

Her writing does seem effortless, descriptive and easy to read. I don't want to discourage anyone from reading the book for themselves. Its a nonfiction book in my collection area of the library so I want it to be popular. Perhaps I just came to the book expecting something it was not offering.

Susan