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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
🔸At first I didnt know what to think about this book since most of the times the addition of spirituality kind of turns me off because some writers forget that people of different beliefs might be reading and their words are easily offensive. I gave it a chance anyways and I am so happy I did.
🔸The book is divided into 3 parts, each having around 36 chapters each about the authors journey to find peace. The author was going through a tough time after her divorce and her romance with her boyfriend so she decided to take on this big vacation of a WHOLE Year (so lucky i know😭).
🔸She spends 4 months each in Italy (where she went just bc she always adored Italian)(where she obviously ate a lot hence EAT) then to India (where she went to stay at an ashram for some time because she was always so amazed with the concept of Yoga and finding inner peace through it, hence PRAY) & finally to Indonesia (bc once when she visited the place, an old palmist told her she'd come back & would stay for 4 months), where also she finds the love of his life, finally giving love another chance hence LOVE.
🔸There is no way else to sum up the book, a little more and I'll spoil it for you because this is a book you should read yourself than to listen about it from someone else.
🔸The book is divided into 3 parts, each having around 36 chapters each about the authors journey to find peace. The author was going through a tough time after her divorce and her romance with her boyfriend so she decided to take on this big vacation of a WHOLE Year (so lucky i know😭).
🔸She spends 4 months each in Italy (where she went just bc she always adored Italian)(where she obviously ate a lot hence EAT) then to India (where she went to stay at an ashram for some time because she was always so amazed with the concept of Yoga and finding inner peace through it, hence PRAY) & finally to Indonesia (bc once when she visited the place, an old palmist told her she'd come back & would stay for 4 months), where also she finds the love of his life, finally giving love another chance hence LOVE.
🔸There is no way else to sum up the book, a little more and I'll spoil it for you because this is a book you should read yourself than to listen about it from someone else.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-paced
I only read the first section and couldn't take it anymore....
adventurous
challenging
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
"In the end the overall effect was rather like sitting at a party listening to someone tell a long involved story all about themselves, and you're alternately annoyed and fascinated and you want to get up and leave but she's just so entertaining that you keep telling yourself you'll leave in the next minute--and so you end up sticking through the whole thing." - Goodreads user Michalyn in the reviews section
That is exactly how I feel about this book.
That is exactly how I feel about this book.
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.5 stars. I've been thinking about this review for awhile and truthfully someone else has already said it better, so I'll copy their (@Michalyn's) review here.
"Wow, this book took me on a roller-coaster ride. I couldn't decide if I loved it or hated it and it seemed like every few pages I'd go from thinking Gilbert was delightfully witty to thinking this was the most horribly self-absorbed person to ever set foot on the earth.
In the end the overall effect was rather like sitting at a party listening to someone tell a long involved story all about themselves, and you're alternately annoyed and fascinated and you want to get up and leave but she's just so entertaining that you keep telling yourself you'll leave in the next minute--and so you end up sticking through the whole thing." - Michalyn
Back to Eve: You know how when someone comes back from study abroad, you're simultaneously interested in the idea of their travels, but exhausted by THEM recounting the travels because they somehow come back thinking they're the most worldly, enlightened person on Earth? Yeah, that's Elizabeth Gilbert. And she studied abroad in THREE places. And she studied language and theology/philosophy/spirituality, so to speak, so you know she's extra annoying. (I say this as a fellow annoying person.)
"Wow, this book took me on a roller-coaster ride. I couldn't decide if I loved it or hated it and it seemed like every few pages I'd go from thinking Gilbert was delightfully witty to thinking this was the most horribly self-absorbed person to ever set foot on the earth.
In the end the overall effect was rather like sitting at a party listening to someone tell a long involved story all about themselves, and you're alternately annoyed and fascinated and you want to get up and leave but she's just so entertaining that you keep telling yourself you'll leave in the next minute--and so you end up sticking through the whole thing." - Michalyn
Back to Eve: You know how when someone comes back from study abroad, you're simultaneously interested in the idea of their travels, but exhausted by THEM recounting the travels because they somehow come back thinking they're the most worldly, enlightened person on Earth? Yeah, that's Elizabeth Gilbert. And she studied abroad in THREE places. And she studied language and theology/philosophy/spirituality, so to speak, so you know she's extra annoying. (I say this as a fellow annoying person.)
Reading "eat, pray, love", whilst one of the best sellers and most popular books, happened to stir in me many delights and yearnings. I loved it through and through.
Elizabeth Gilbert paints a world of joy, bittersweet sorrow, and entertainment in her self-discovery. I find her writings overwhelmingly beautiful. It is not often that I can identify so much with the personality of an author and the yearnings of her search. I hardly have much in common with her situation: She is divorced, lives in NYC, and travels alone to 3 countries in one year of her life. I love her guts. I love that, as a woman, she can so boldly state that she did not wish to have children and that she was unhappy with a great man in her marriage and her fancy apartment in New York. I absolutely admire that she can claim, without any apology, that she cannot find happiness in her seemingly perfect life - oddly enough- a life which until then was her own picture of idealism.
At the age of 34, Elizabeth Gilbert, in all her devotion to pursuit of a dream, decides to give up everything she has built in pursuit of the longing of her heart and a journey of self-discovery. She defies cultural notions that we should be happy if we are married to a good person and that the maternal instinct should kick in right around 30 for a healthy, normal woman. Finally, when her bouts of depression become intolerable, she makes the commitment to that self-discovery and sets off for her one year journey to three countries whose names start with an I - suiting her mission to self-actualization even more perfectly if you care to put significance into small coincidences - Italy, India, and Indonesia.
Elizabeth's prose is unique and poetic; I was engrossed in her world. Her passages read like a symphony, music to my ears. At the time, I had constantly dreamt of visiting Italy and for lack of no good reason, it had still not happened. Elizabeth Gilbert gave me Italy better than any guidebook or travel journal. She writes with subtlety about her experiences and is herself surprised by the enormous joy she is reaping from it all - watching Italian boys play football in the streets, choosing her gelato flavors carefully, thoroughly enjoying every bite of her food, taking Italian lessons, and engrossing in life as it unfolds in the form of daily routine for the average Italian.
I admire the most about Elizabeth Gilbert her thirst for adventure; it leaves me green with envy. How she travels to a country so far and away to find a 100-plus year old medicine man she met years ago is an example of Elizabeth's care-free, risk-loving, it-will-all-work-out attitude, that to me contrasts with her constant worrisome traits. Off she goes to Bali, and through a luck-struck bizarre and ingenious way, she most certainly finds her medicine man and spends the last four months of her adventure in beautiful Bali.
She is an ordinary novice at travel, without so much as preparing an itinerary or making a plan before getting on the road. She experiences horrible incidents of indigestion from the thought of travel alone and has hardly any tolerance for non-ordinary foods and unfamiliar climates. She is as equally unprepared to travel alone on such a self-discovery mission as a child. Yet she gets through it all by exploiting her one key strength: her ease in making friends with anyone, anyone at all.
Our `novice' traveler sets on her journey to the countries of Italy, India and Indonesia, in that order. The order in which she visits her countries carries a significance that she shares like so: Italy is for indulging in life, food, sights, sounds, India is for indulging in health, purity, yoga, meditation, and reflection, and Indonesia is to return to the medicine man she met years earlier, without so much as having a name, address, or a plan to aid her search. The uncertainty and lack of preparation thrills and worries her at the same time - it tests her tolerance for the unknown, and in a bizarre way, seems to cause her to mature and grow to not worry about small details. What is the worst possible scenario? Well, she may just not find her medicine man. Are we conditioned to worry and plan too much during times when the journey needs to take its own course? There is so much at stake if we do not plan - a waste of time, money, resources, a lost opportunity, a frustrating journey - and while all of that is plausible, the unknown still has a thrill and risk has a taste that fills us with envy and curiosity.
Elizabeth Gilbert tells us poignantly about her struggles in the Ashram in India; these were among my most favorite passages of the book. The experience of Ashram by itself would provide difficult enough for anyone taking on a journey of self-discovery, but particularly for her so recently parting with her indolent, carefree days in Italy. The atmosphere and environment of Italy and India and the nature of her journey in each could not be more in contrast. While in the Ashram, she struggles to adjust. Sitting in meditation for hours. Waking up at the wee hours of the morning to sit in this silence for what seems like eternity. Doing yoga for a while before returning to silence and to more meditation. The discipline, the sacrifices of instant pleasures for the sake of a higher pursuit. These make up some of the core messages of "Eat Pray Love" by the brave and open spirited Elizabeth Gilbert.
Elizabeth Gilbert paints a world of joy, bittersweet sorrow, and entertainment in her self-discovery. I find her writings overwhelmingly beautiful. It is not often that I can identify so much with the personality of an author and the yearnings of her search. I hardly have much in common with her situation: She is divorced, lives in NYC, and travels alone to 3 countries in one year of her life. I love her guts. I love that, as a woman, she can so boldly state that she did not wish to have children and that she was unhappy with a great man in her marriage and her fancy apartment in New York. I absolutely admire that she can claim, without any apology, that she cannot find happiness in her seemingly perfect life - oddly enough- a life which until then was her own picture of idealism.
At the age of 34, Elizabeth Gilbert, in all her devotion to pursuit of a dream, decides to give up everything she has built in pursuit of the longing of her heart and a journey of self-discovery. She defies cultural notions that we should be happy if we are married to a good person and that the maternal instinct should kick in right around 30 for a healthy, normal woman. Finally, when her bouts of depression become intolerable, she makes the commitment to that self-discovery and sets off for her one year journey to three countries whose names start with an I - suiting her mission to self-actualization even more perfectly if you care to put significance into small coincidences - Italy, India, and Indonesia.
Elizabeth's prose is unique and poetic; I was engrossed in her world. Her passages read like a symphony, music to my ears. At the time, I had constantly dreamt of visiting Italy and for lack of no good reason, it had still not happened. Elizabeth Gilbert gave me Italy better than any guidebook or travel journal. She writes with subtlety about her experiences and is herself surprised by the enormous joy she is reaping from it all - watching Italian boys play football in the streets, choosing her gelato flavors carefully, thoroughly enjoying every bite of her food, taking Italian lessons, and engrossing in life as it unfolds in the form of daily routine for the average Italian.
I admire the most about Elizabeth Gilbert her thirst for adventure; it leaves me green with envy. How she travels to a country so far and away to find a 100-plus year old medicine man she met years ago is an example of Elizabeth's care-free, risk-loving, it-will-all-work-out attitude, that to me contrasts with her constant worrisome traits. Off she goes to Bali, and through a luck-struck bizarre and ingenious way, she most certainly finds her medicine man and spends the last four months of her adventure in beautiful Bali.
She is an ordinary novice at travel, without so much as preparing an itinerary or making a plan before getting on the road. She experiences horrible incidents of indigestion from the thought of travel alone and has hardly any tolerance for non-ordinary foods and unfamiliar climates. She is as equally unprepared to travel alone on such a self-discovery mission as a child. Yet she gets through it all by exploiting her one key strength: her ease in making friends with anyone, anyone at all.
Our `novice' traveler sets on her journey to the countries of Italy, India and Indonesia, in that order. The order in which she visits her countries carries a significance that she shares like so: Italy is for indulging in life, food, sights, sounds, India is for indulging in health, purity, yoga, meditation, and reflection, and Indonesia is to return to the medicine man she met years earlier, without so much as having a name, address, or a plan to aid her search. The uncertainty and lack of preparation thrills and worries her at the same time - it tests her tolerance for the unknown, and in a bizarre way, seems to cause her to mature and grow to not worry about small details. What is the worst possible scenario? Well, she may just not find her medicine man. Are we conditioned to worry and plan too much during times when the journey needs to take its own course? There is so much at stake if we do not plan - a waste of time, money, resources, a lost opportunity, a frustrating journey - and while all of that is plausible, the unknown still has a thrill and risk has a taste that fills us with envy and curiosity.
Elizabeth Gilbert tells us poignantly about her struggles in the Ashram in India; these were among my most favorite passages of the book. The experience of Ashram by itself would provide difficult enough for anyone taking on a journey of self-discovery, but particularly for her so recently parting with her indolent, carefree days in Italy. The atmosphere and environment of Italy and India and the nature of her journey in each could not be more in contrast. While in the Ashram, she struggles to adjust. Sitting in meditation for hours. Waking up at the wee hours of the morning to sit in this silence for what seems like eternity. Doing yoga for a while before returning to silence and to more meditation. The discipline, the sacrifices of instant pleasures for the sake of a higher pursuit. These make up some of the core messages of "Eat Pray Love" by the brave and open spirited Elizabeth Gilbert.
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced