"Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert

The October book for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club is "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert (who is childfree by choice).   

This is not my first time reading this book: I first read it back in the fall of (gulp) 2008 -- how can that be 16 years ago, already??!  It was the early days of this blog, and Mel chose it for her Barren Bitches Book Tour. My tour post about the book then was more about participating in the discussion and answering some of the posted questions than an overall review (you can find that post here, as well as a related post here). I didn't join Goodreads until 2016, I think? but I did add & rate some books there retroactively, and gave EPL 4 stars. I also saw the 2010 movie version with Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem (yum!).   

It was interesting to revisit this book again, so many years later -- albeit it was difficult to view it in a completely fresh & unbiased way.  After all, EPL quickly became a cultural phenomenon (which Gilbert comments on in a new introduction to the 10th anniversary edition -- it will be 20 years in 2026 since the book was published!), and launched a wave of women travelling solo to exotic destinations.  

By now, the book's premise is familiar (even to those who haven't actually read it yet): in 2003, after the collapse of her marriage, her job and basically her entire life, Gilbert decided to spend a year travelling and living in three different countries: Italy, where she would realize her ambition of learning to speak Italian;  India, where she would spend time at an ashram with her guru (!);  and Indonesia (Bali), where she would seek balance and study with a traditional medicine man she'd met once before (and which is also where she met her future husband, Felipe). (They are now divorced.) In 2008, the "eat" section in Italy was my favourite, and I still think it is today. (Italian food -- what's not to like, right?)  But there are some fascinating insights into three very different cultures throughout the book. 

It's a fairly easy read, divided into 108 relatively short chapters (the same number as the beads on a standard prayer/meditation necklace, as Gilbert explains early on in the book).  While it's usually shelved among the memoirs/biographies in bookstores and libraries, I would say it's part memoir, part travelogue, part history lesson, part spiritual exploration and part self-help book.  

There was a lot of criticism of this book and the author when it first came out: she was called "selfish" (selfish? -- a single, childless/free woman in her mid-30s? hmmm, this sounds familiar...), whiny and self-absorbed.  I didn't really think any of that when I first read the book, and I didn't think that now either (although she did sometimes seem a little flighty/scattered).  What did strike me: her voracious appetite to learn new and experience things. And the wry humour!   

I previously rated this book 4 stars on Goodreads, based on my 2008 reading & blog post, and I think that's still a fair assessment today.  

I also read and loved "City of Girls" by the same author in 2019 (reviewed here).

November's book will be a classic that I've not yet read: "Persuasion" by Jane Austen. (And I'll be leading the discussion, so I'd better start reading soon...!) 

This was Book #28 read to date in 2024 (and Book #1 finished in October), bringing me to 62%  of my 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 (!) books behind schedule to meet my goal. :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2024 tagged as "2024 books."