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jjh_doveandblackbird 's review for:
Eat Pray Love
by Elizabeth Gilbert
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I need to start by saying I love Liz Gilbert.
Now to be clear, until Eay Pray Love, I had only ever read one of her books: Big Magic, which I have reread and still adore. Often lamenting that I should actually read her other work someday.
So I've started. Because all of her books are now on my shelf. Because in the years prior to, and the almost-20 years since this book was written, Liz Gilbert has become an icon, an accomplished writer, a teacher and guide in mindfulness and love, and someone I ardently admire.
Which is why I was so devastated when I wanted to DNF this book.
Truthfully, were it not for my established admiration, and her new introduction celebrating its 10th anniversary that was included in my edition, I would have.
Because the Liz of the beginning of this book was not someone whose life I would have had any interest in reading about. It wreaked of privilege and/or shrewdness. It read as woe-is-me instead of eliciting empathy for her suffering.
I hated it.
But I kept going. Because I am familiar with the Liz of now, and I truly wanted to know how she got from there to here.
So I kept reading.
And it got better.
So much better.
Charming and insightful, possessing a self-awareness that I would not have imagined from those first pages. I understood by the end how it had become such a phenomenon all those years ago.
And as a spiritual journeyist myself, her actual transformations and experiences really resonated with things I've gone through in my own life.
Turns out that bit in the beginning that I hated was intentional.
And the follow-through was worth the persistence.
I'm glad I stuck with it. And can't wait to dive into the next memoir in preparation for her upcoming release in September. (Plus all her fiction too lol).
4.25 stars
Now to be clear, until Eay Pray Love, I had only ever read one of her books: Big Magic, which I have reread and still adore. Often lamenting that I should actually read her other work someday.
So I've started. Because all of her books are now on my shelf. Because in the years prior to, and the almost-20 years since this book was written, Liz Gilbert has become an icon, an accomplished writer, a teacher and guide in mindfulness and love, and someone I ardently admire.
Which is why I was so devastated when I wanted to DNF this book.
Truthfully, were it not for my established admiration, and her new introduction celebrating its 10th anniversary that was included in my edition, I would have.
Because the Liz of the beginning of this book was not someone whose life I would have had any interest in reading about. It wreaked of privilege and/or shrewdness. It read as woe-is-me instead of eliciting empathy for her suffering.
I hated it.
But I kept going. Because I am familiar with the Liz of now, and I truly wanted to know how she got from there to here.
So I kept reading.
And it got better.
So much better.
Charming and insightful, possessing a self-awareness that I would not have imagined from those first pages. I understood by the end how it had become such a phenomenon all those years ago.
And as a spiritual journeyist myself, her actual transformations and experiences really resonated with things I've gone through in my own life.
Turns out that bit in the beginning that I hated was intentional.
And the follow-through was worth the persistence.
I'm glad I stuck with it. And can't wait to dive into the next memoir in preparation for her upcoming release in September. (Plus all her fiction too lol).
4.25 stars