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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Audio)

Eat, Pray, Love was the June Lakeshore Moms' Book Club pick. I was really looking forward to reading it after hearing good things on Oprah and elsewhere about this book for the past few years. I was running short on time so I chose to listen to the audio version of this book as read by the author herself, Elizabeth Gilbert.

I wish I could say that I loved this book, but I instead found it to be extremely boring. I think the main problem was that I never connected with the author, Elizabeth Gilbert. Ms. Gilbert had the perfect live: nice house in the suburbs, husband, great job. Yet she finds herself sobbing in the bathroom from unhappiness. She leaves her husband, has an affair with a man named David, and then decides she wants to travel to Italy, India, and Indonesia. She gets a publisher to pay for the trip if she promises to write a book about the trip when she returns.

Off she goes on her trip. In Italy she eats a lot of tasty sounding food and learns to speak Italian. She laments often about David and strangely not her husband. She then goes to India where she talks a lot about her problems praying. This was VERY boring. In Indonesia she has a guru and falls in love with a hot brazilian.

I guess to me, Ms. Gilbert seemed like a rich woman with a different set of problems and values than I have . . .and it wasn't that interesting to read about. I didn't really learn much by reading about her mental problems and problems with praying. I didn't feel much sympathy at all . . . except for her poor husband that she left. Especially after she spends the entire book talking about David and how she wants him back and barely says anything about the man she had married.

At the end of the day, I was confused on why this book gets such glowing reviews and was a best seller. Did anyone enjoy this book more than I did? Sadly our book club was postponed until next month, I want to see what everyone else thought about this book.

3 comments:

  1. Laura, I enjoyed this book. It took me a while to get into it, but then I was hooked. Elizabeth Gilbert is very funny.

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  2. Maybe it is just me. I actually enjoyed the Italy section much more than I enjoyed the rest. I found it very repetitive and boring.

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  3. I love how honest your reviews are Laura! It seems so many book bloggers shy away from being 'too' honest - but I love it about your blog! Because of this, I'd like to invite you to be a guest reviewer for my own blog. (It's exciting I promise). Please check it out at the link below. If you are interested please email me. I look forward to hearing from you.

    Miss Remmers

    http://reagan-review.blogspot.com/2009/06/looking-for-guest-reviewers.html

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