Book of the Month: Eat Pray Love
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Everyone has heard the phrase “Eat Pray Love” or watched the film adaptation starring Julia Roberts, but what about the book behind these references? We are here to tell you that the memoir that inspired this popular social movement of solo, female, soul-searching travel is definitely worth a read.
Image: Amazon
Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything
Originally Published: 2006
Pages: 400
Available on: Kindle, Audiobook, Paperback
Get Your Copy Here
Instead of writing a blog on Eat Pray Love, we considered just listing exceptional direct quote after exceptional direct quote from this memoir. Elizabeth Gilbert delivers punchy, profound, and authentic remarks that makes you pause, re-read, and re-enjoy.
Example:
““You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your spine outta be.””
Ouch.
She elicits easily your admiration and smile, for both her humorous and sharp storytelling skills and her willingness to share her up-and-down search for spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional peace and solace.
The memoir begins as Gilbert, a professional writer in her early thirties, makes the overwhelmingly difficult decision to get a divorce, prompting a spiral that leaves her desperate for change. Not knowing what direction to take or how to rebuild her happiness, she sets out to change her life for the better, and she structures her journey in three separate, very different segments, in her memoir.
She first pursues earthly pleasure in Italy through food, friendship, language, and “il bel far niente” (the beauty of doing nothing); she then pursues quietness of mind, spiritual peace, and deep purpose in India through prayer, silence, and strong mentality; and in Bali, she pursues a balance of the two, finding love and a sense of fulfillment after her year of travel. Balance becomes a familiar theme throughout Eat Pray Love as Gilbert struggles to reconstruct her life—not only put it back together, but rectify it in a way that is conducive to long-lasting peace.
Filled with memorable quips, characters, anecdotes, adventure, and deep emotion, each phase of Eat Pray Love is well-constructed and well-written. Gilbert has a non-traditional approach to spirituality and to God, and writes about it in a very open-minded and candid manner.
Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love is exceptional for several reasons.
““Her determination and passion in being brave and independent enough to make those lifestyle changes, to try different things, to proactively seek out happiness, instead of remaining stuck in an unfulfilling cycle, is simply inspiring.””
First, for her story. Her personal, intense struggle with a mid-life crisis, divorce, and hunger for long-lasting peace and balance is something that resonates with readers. Her determination and passion in being brave and independent enough to make those lifestyle changes, to try different things, to proactively seek out happiness, instead of remaining stuck in an unfulfilling cycle, is simply inspiring.
Second, Gilbert’s writing stands out. Her storytelling, honed as a journalist in New York City, is generously sprinkled with dynamic and sensual language, vulnerability, enthusiasm, and self-deprecatory humor. If you don’t find yourself laughing out aloud, especially in the first half of the book, you need to re-think your definition of humor. You will also get chills up your spine as she describes her lowest points in confidence, happiness, and romance.
Gilbert is transparent, passionate, and simply very likable, as both an author and human being. She is equal parts light-hearted, heavy-hearted, and self-reflecting as she relays her story.
Published in 2006, Eat Pray Love has sold over 12 million copies and has been translated into 30 different languages. The book exploded in popular culture, and became an instantaneous best-seller. The memoir has garnered some controversial criticism from book critics about not adequately or realistically painting her approach to ‘finding herself’.
As long as you walk into the memoir knowing that this woman and author’s pursuit didn’t end as the memoir’s did—it is not as if this memoir holds the key to happiness and self-discovery through rich food, deep love, soul-synching spirituality, and international travel. I mean, that sounds amazing, but… that is no formula and isn’t the be-all and end-all. It is important to remember that this memoir is a segment of Gilbert’s journey. She doesn’t sail off into the sunset. Gilbert, being a romantic, does romanticize a lot. However, despite this, it is funny, it is interesting, and it is often profound.
Life is not a storybook ending, and each person has their own individual journey to finding and retaining inner peace and balance. Eat Pray Love is just one part of one woman’s search for everything, and this particular segment of her journey is vibrant and could perhaps inspire or shed some light on your own journey.
We do recommend watching the 2010 film adaptation, which is currently available on Netflix, but the book is better. (Sorry, Julia Roberts!)
Get Your Copy of Eat Pray Love Here
To close, here is a quote from the book:
““I have searched frantically for contentment for so many years in so many ways, and all these acquisitions and accomplishments- they run you down in the end. Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time- when pursued like a bandit- will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you’re banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because you won’t. You have to admit that you can’t catch it. That you’re not supposed to catch it. At some point… you gotta let go and sit still and let contentment come to you.””