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 enlarge | Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $4.10
You Save: $10.90 (73%)
New (146) Collectible (6) from $4.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  1561 reviews
Sales Rank: 21
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0143038419
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
EAN: 9780143038412
ASIN: 0143038419
Publication Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great Summer Read! July 7, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I loved this book! It's written like your sitting and chatting with an old friend. Easy, comfortable and interesting. You feel like you know the people and care about what happens to them. I loved the part about her riding her bike past the monkey and what she said! Hysterical!!!
The places the author talks about are very seldom seem by the average person, making it all the more interesting! What a wonderful adventure that most of us can only dream of. Great Summer Book!!! (I can't wait for the continuing story, due out next year!)
 relentless drivel July 7, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
I tried reading past the point of Italy but i couldn't. the vague nature at which she describes the end of her marriage leaves me suspicious of her and her motivation. this is a book, this is YOUR BOOK. this book is supposed to be about YOUR spiritual journey as a result of YOUR DIVORCE and circumstances that surround the journey you've chosen to share, how could you not what to talk about that? impossible! reading this made me so upset.
overall, i came to the realization that any drivel can be published and, if marketed right, become successful. I have never returned a book but i did return this one, and the attendant didn't seem very surprised to see it back.
Terrible Terrible Terrible July 7, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
This was just awful. I echo the views of many who found her to be just self-absorbed and whiny. There are gimmicky silly devices all over everywhere (e.g., I've changed the names of everyone, oh but not of this Texan chappie, ok almost everyone; and I've omitted mentioning my spiritual guru in India because, well, I'm sure he doesn't want the publicity...).
I also could not bring myself to finish this...
Should've followed my instincts! July 7, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book has gotten a lot of hype and prominent bookstore placement...based not on good writing but likely a great publicist. Here's a narrator you can't even trust, let alone tolerate. Her skimpiness on the details for her ruined marriage gives readers the impression that the truth is being hidden from them in order to shape their impressions of her. Most likely this is the case because she fears readers might think for themselves instead of just listening to her side of things. Strike 1.
She's also an unreliable narrator because her circumstances are so uncommon to what most people experience in a divorce. It's rare for anybody to be able to flit off around the world with a wad of money when they feel that life has become too difficult. No, most of us experience tragedy (tragedy we have not caused, unlike Gilbert), and we have to muddle through. She doesn't acknowledge this or approach her writing with any recognition that yes, there are worse things in life than the problems she creates for herself. Strike 2.
I couldn't even finish this book, though I really tried. I can't immerse myself in a book where the narrator is so jarringly set on focusing you on herself. And the view is not great, it's irritating. The impression I get of her is that she is overwhelmingly, unshakably amused by herself. She's like a spoiled child who has been doted on and therefore expects others to automatically love her and agree with her skewed self-pity. "Don't you HATE that I had to give up my Manhattan apartment and my nice big house in the suburbs??" Strike 3.
Her "insights" about God and spirituality are shallow and depend on things that make her feel warm and fuzzy. I read The Diving Bell and The Butterfly while trying to read Eat Pray Love...the books are like night and day. Someone with no real problems going all to pieces, and someone who has lost everything and remains optimistic. I think I'll learn my lessons from Diving Bell!
 sweet, honest, open-hearted. July 6, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am surprised at the negative comments on this book. I don't know what those reviewers were expecting, but I found the book to be a light chronicle of one woman's journey in search of herself and a sane relationship with life. Gilbert writes with an open-hearted honesty. At times her style and commentary seem a bit child-like, or even childish, but overall I have found her telling of the tale to be engaging and sweet-spirited. I'm just past the point where she decides to stay a while longer at the Ashram in India. Her personal search for enlightenment bogs down a bit at this point, but I appreciate her effort to lead others through the labyrinth she explored. Maybe those who react so negatively have yet to appreciate the value of that kind of exploration. I can see how it might have struck me that way some years back.
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