Eat, Pray, Love

Title: Eat Pray Love

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Company: Penguin Books, New York

Reason, Type and Setting: With my Japan trip coming very soon, I thought I'd read a nonfictional piece on traveling and this was the perfect one. Well, actually, I happened to see this book in Elika's stack of books and I thought I might as well read it. Being an avid traveler, I could relate a lot to the character and this is probably my favorite book that I've read among the books reported on here. As said before, this is a nonfictional novel and is set in New York, Italy, Indonesia, and India.

Plot: This whole story of Eat, Pray, Love starts with a woman who has an emotional breakdown after going through a nasty divorce with her husband of 8 years and with yet another relationship failing with a man named David that she just cannot forget. After a spiritual epiphany in the bathroom, she decides to travel and immerse herself in pleasure, devotion, and balance. All of these three are found respectively in Italy, India, and Indonesia where she resides for about four months each. Thus, a total of a whole year spent on traveling. In Italy, Liz finds pleasure in the foods, culture, and the language most of all. Her main goal is to learn Italian and meets interesting people and friends. There, she binges on happiness after going through a long period of depression. After her four month period of euphoria, she decides to cleanse the previous stress with longing to forget David by visiting an Ashram in India where she practices meditation and spiritual healing. In Indonesia, she visits an old man named Ketut, who is a healer. This wasn't her first time in Indonesia, and the last time Ketut predicted that she would come to Indonesia and stay with him for four months. Overall, this story is of a woman's adventure and experience of trying to regain happiness.


Character: Being that this book is a nonfictional novel based on Liz Gilbert's travel, it makes sense to focus on her. Liz Gilbert is a middle-aged woman of about 34 years old, whose physical features include being slim, fair, and blonde. As for her character, she is a strong and decisive woman who worries and thinks about the past too much. She is an adventurous woman who keeps an open mind. She is also approachable and has a friendly and outgoing personality.


Evaluation: Among all of the books I've read within the book reports found on here, I'd have to say this is a favorite among those that I have read. You can get a good insight as to Liz Gilbert's personality and adventure to these various places and how these trips affect her as a person. I think when I am able to travel more in the future I'd like to document them in sort of the same style as hers and eventually see how I have progressed as a person through these trips. I guess you could say this book has made me feeling inspired.

Author, Context and Trivia: Elizabeth Gilbert was born in 1969 to a family that lived on a Christmas Tree farm. The year 1993 debuted her literary career when her short stories became published in the magazine Esquire. She has written four books and numerous short stories.