Okay, right off the bat, I will say here that I liked this book. I LIKED IT. Damn you, Liz Gilbert! You are not as bad as Dan Brown, as I had suspected, since everyone loved your book, even Oprah!* But that will not keep me from publishing the blog title above, which I thought up instantly upon realizing that I had to read this book!
*Okay, fine. I also like Oprah. So there are TWO REASONS I did not want to read this book, much less LIKE it.
It was chosen by my book club because one of our members was going to Italy. Therefore, I had to read it. I did not exercise my right of withdrawal, as one of our members did. She replied “I hate this book, and I am not coming.”
Funny, she is the only other happily-married-with-children member of our club. Apologies to all others in case they take this the wrong way, but I am simply stating a coincidental fact that all others are either single or in tumultuous relationships. And they all liked the book, and were not offended or angry at it at all, aside from some mild skepticism.
While I did not dislike the book, I definitely still feel like I am the only one of us who was mildly offended by its self- indulgent nature. If not for book club, I would not have needed to read this book. However, once engaged, any educated reader is drawn in by her voice and invited to curl up on the papasan chair with a jelly jar of wine and stay awhile. In fact, have a chocolate while you’re here. Suddenly, the book is over and you’ve actually learned something.
Eat, Pray, Love is even bloggy by nature. It’s word vomit. It’s oversharing. It’s throwing your insecurities and secret fart stories out into the world expecting nobody to read it but hoping they will. One big difference: the book advance.
Maybe that’s why I’m so admiring and so angry at this book at the same time. Good for you, going to Italy and eating pasta for four months, meditating in India, and rocking out with your bad self in Bali. I’ll NEVER get a chance like that, much less be paid for it. Jealous, and also disdainful. That’s me.
Like I said to my book club tonight, it’ll be a damn shame if she turns out to be like James Frey. I’m just saying.
I actually loved this book, but I know some people have found it annoying as hell, and I think it probably meets the very definition of “self-indulgent.”
Despite the fact that your post’s title might give the opposite impression, I’m glad to know you liked it too :-).
You are right on the money when you call it “bloggy.” I wish the author would have written a blog instead of this book because I didn’t understand why her life would be so interesting to the rest of us. But, then, clearly I’m wrong because it was on the bestseller list for a very long time.
Thanks for being the first person ever to comment on my new blog!
Shannon, I just checked out your blog and you and Kim write so much alike. I had a laugh-out-loud moment at my office. Thanks!
I am a faithful lurker being led to your blog by holdentracks.com a year ago. I had the same experience of having to read EPL for my bookclub. I’m a voracious reader, yet it took me a month to get through Italy. But once EG arrives in Italy and brings Richard from Texas into her life and story, I was hooked and finished the rest of the book in two nights. I so love EPL that I went to hear EG speak at a small Malibu bookstore last summer. I arrived with my cynic in charge and left with that cynic crumpled up in a heap, keeled over by my smiling liver (I sure hope you remember the Bali medicine man telling EG to smile ….or else you’ll pray that I unlurk myself from your site…) because of how open and giving EG is in person. She even told us she went over the top with too much info in EPY. And she embraced each and everyone of those women in the standing room only crowd who had just left a tumultuous relationship or were just about to be happily ever after married — and those in between such as moi. You are so on target as ever, and so refreshingly honest with your clear insights and observations. Thank you for allowing me to lurk and enjoy (the only other blog I lurk on, I happened to arrive at via your blog: thepioneerwoman.com — so thank you too).
Yep, I thought the same thing–and I’m NOT a happily married mother. I read it last summer when my cousin sent it to me as a ‘must read’ because you’re husband has just gone ’round the bend. I think she thought I would be spurred on to something. Instead, I was somewhat annoyed. Facile, I believe is what I said in my post on the book. Reads like a blog. Needs an editor. And facile…did I mention that? I saw her on Oprah some months later and really liked her. So I decided I was too hasty and I would reread it. Nope, I was right the first time.
It’s funny. I read EPL last summer smack in the middle of trying to get over the mess my relationship – the one I thought was IT, THE ONE, ended in and mend my broken heart. I liked it at the time and I truly think a large part of liking it was b/c of what I was going through in my own life. I’m quite sure I’d feel a bit more cynical reading it at a different moment in my life.
I do have to say, one thing that irked me throughout was her whole “you too should do something like this if you’ve gone through a heart wrenching break up” because the whole time I was all, “Um, well, SOME of us don’t get book deals that allow us to travel ALL OVER THE WORLD. No, SOME of us have to work and heal our broken hearts right here at home.”
Ha! I was WAITING for you to speak up, Kelli. I remember you writing about this on your blog.
I read it and was impressed by her writing. I thought she was pretty dang good, a storyteller. But jealous of her gig? Yeah, totally. I want someone to pay me for my whims…come on, editors – send me to Spain to party with a pro soccer team, to Africa to study music and dance, and…where else, hmmmm to learn to Scuba dive in Honduras.