eat pray love was our book club choice this month, and we met last night to discuss it. i really liked this book. 4.1 out of 5. (i need more than one significant digit)
at the beginning, the author, liz, decides to travel the world for a year. she is at the end of an unamicable divorce. she’s had a roller coaster relationship with another man. she feels like she’s done what she’s supposed to do in her life, but isn’t fulfilled. and so she travels, looking for fulfillment in three ways: pleasure, prayer and balance.
for pleasure, she spends four months in italy. she wants to learn italian and eat marvelous food. and she does.
for prayer, she spends four months in an ashram in india, under the tutelage of a guru. here, she learns to meditate and accept the parts of herself that she has been struggling with.
for balance, she spends her last four months in bali. she studies with a 9th generation medicine man, an also-divorced (rare in bali) medicine woman, and also finds love again.
the book is broken into 108 fairly short chapters, which made for easy reading. each chapter was a story in itself, and i loved these little stories. they made me want to retrace her steps and go on a similar journey.
i find it difficult to describe why i liked the book so much. i identified with liz on a number of different levels. the self-awareness she gained from meditation appealed to me. maybe i’ll try it sometime.
