‘Eat Pray Love’ by Elizabeth Gilbert

If you’re mildly interested in seeing the Eat Pray Love movie starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem, I suggest that you first read the book. This definitely isn’t the best book in the world, so if you’re looking for a gripping, fast paced read, this may not be a top choice for you, but it’s definitely interesting and offers a unique look at different places in the world.

First of all, this book gets off to quite a slow start, but stick with it. Gilbert was dealing with a lot of issues while writing it, mainly being unhappy in her marriage. The whole reason that she took a year off to visit Italy, India, and Bali was because she realized that she wanted to get out of her marriage and needed to take some time for herself because the divorce took so much out of her. That being said, there’s a lot of very deep emotional stuff going on for Gilbert in the beginning of the book because she’s very lost and doesn’t know how to exist outside of the identity that she’s created for herself. At the beginning of this book, there are a lot of instances where Gilbert is talking to herself and trying to find God. During the beginning of her journey in Italy, Gilbert is still a bit lost, so it’s hard for readers to connect with her. But as she opens up to the culture and meeting new people, readers want to read more and more about her experiences.

Personally, reading this book, Gilbert comes off as a bit self-obsessed because she’s always mainly focusing on herself and her own problems, but as she travels, she begins to see how important it is to help other people as well, and I think that this is why her book becomes more enjoyable as time goes on. While in India and Bali, Gilbert really gives insight into cultures and practices that most people probably wouldn’t be familiar with. She learns new things about herself, and this really promotes the idea that people can change if they really want to.

The book goes into depth that the movie can’t encompass just because it’s around 300 pages versus a 2-hour movie that has to keep the story going. By the end of the book, readers can really see the changed person that Gilbert is.

The characters in the book besides Gilbert are also important to the story as a whole. The people from her life in the United States are mostly left behind for the duration of this story because they represent things that she’s trying to break away from. But there are many interesting people in Rome, India, and Bali, and they come from all different countries around the world, proving that not only is Gilbert connecting with the countries that she’s visiting but also with other cultures through the friends that she makes. Many of these characters like Richard from Texas are very much opposite of what Gilbert is, so they liven up the story and provide variation.

Once you get into reading Eat Pray Love, this book is a pretty good read. The beginning is definitely slow, but Gilbert’s travels are interesting, and readers can get a sense of how far Gilbert was willing to go to change her life, even if it isn’t altogether practical for your average person to take a year off from life.