Eat Pray Love

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Okay, so I have one personal rule: always read the book before seeing the movie. So, of course, with the upcoming Julia roberts movie Eat Pray Love I went out and bought a copy of the novel.

I’m like thirty pages in and I can’t stand the main character. I can’t stand the wishy-washy spirituality of the woman and her need for male attention. The writing isn’t alse very deep, more like one-liners and trite observations made by the main character.

For people who have read this novel, did you have the same problems? Does it get better? Please tell me it gets better or else I may never finish this novel.
 
No, it doesn’t get any better. The author remains a shallow, self absorbed woman.

It’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
 
Janks said:
Okay, so I have one personal rule: always read the book before seeing the movie. So, of course, with the upcoming Julia roberts movie Eat Pray Love I went out and bought a copy of the novel.

I’m like thirty pages in and I can’t stand the main character. I can’t stand the wishy-washy spirituality of the woman and her need for male attention.
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Oh, man. That’s exactly what I thought that book would be like. A sort of airheaded yet self-important “spiritual but not religious” travelogue.
 
I’ve managed to avoid reading the book (the fact that Oprah is so big on it was a significant factor in that) but, from what I have gathered from reviews, etc., the author (main character) is not the sort of person I’d like to spend a lot of time with. That “spiritual but not religious” baloney irritates the heck out of me.
 
Biblioassistant said:
No, it doesn’t get any better. The author remains a shallow, self absorbed woman.

It’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
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Isn’t her follow-up book called “Committed?” As in, married - as in, she contradicted everything she talked about in her first book? I have no interest in reading either book, but it seems like she has lost all credibility on the matter. And Julia Roberts is box office poison.
 
Yeah, it bugged me when she said: “And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can’t swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God.” Or how in Chapter Nine, she writes a petition to God to help her end her divorce(by the way, she was also having an affair) and then she starts naming people who would sign her petition. St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, and St. Joan of Arc were included on the list! This lady is seriously nuts!
 
Yeah, it bugged me when she said: “And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can’t swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God.” Or how in Chapter Nine, she writes a petition to God to help her end her divorce(by the way, she was also having an affair) and then she starts naming people who would sign her petition. St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, and St. Joan of Arc were included on the list! This lady is seriously nuts!
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Yikes!
 
If I may be so blunt, this waste of paper is an example of the reason why I prefer Non-fiction books; especially books about the Catholic faith:thumbsup:
 
Musicadmirer said:
If I may be so blunt, this waste of paper is an example of the reason why I prefer Non-fiction books; especially books about the Catholic faith:thumbsup:
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Well if you don’t mind me being so blunt, as a fiction writer I’d say I’m insulted. Don’t lump one book with the entirety of fiction. :rolleyes: If anything, a poor slice-of-life novel such as this is the poorest example. (Well, next to smutty romance ones that my aunts like to read. :rolleyes:)
 
Yeah, Eat Pray Love seems to be following the latest trend in fiction; 30 to 40-something women go off and travel the world to find themselves. You know, we give men a hard time about their mid-life crises but when a woman has one, they write a book. Usually a very bad book.
 
Musicadmirer said:
If I may be so blunt, this waste of paper is an example of the reason why I prefer Non-fiction books; especially books about the Catholic faith:thumbsup:
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This book proves that non-fiction can waste paper as well as fiction. Eat pray love is Liz Gilbert’s recounting of her ‘recovery’ from divorce and the year she spent finding herself by traveling through Italy, India and Bali.

She absolutely is confused spiritually, and the final quarter of the book completely discounts everything that came before.

However, if you can put that aside (a mighty big ‘if’!) the portion set in Italy is a fun read. I enjoyed her descriptions of the food, the people and the language.

By the time Liz got to India, I began to lose patience with her, and once she reached Bali, I was thoroughly frustrated with her. I borrowed Committed from the library, but could read no more than a few pages.

If she ever does a travellogue of Italy, I’ll give it a try, but otherwise, I’ll leave her books on the shelf.
 
Janks said:
Yeah, it bugged me when she said: “And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can’t swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God.” Or how in Chapter Nine, she writes a petition to God to help her end her divorce(by the way, she was also having an affair) and then she starts naming people who would sign her petition. St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, and St. Joan of Arc were included on the list! This lady is seriously nuts!
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I think I know what Joan of Arc would do… and it involves a sword and a pike 😃
 
Ok, I also have the rule about reading the book first, and I have liked Julia Roberts in some of her movies, so thinking that the scenery and culture would be beautiful, I figured I might see the movie. Since I had picked up the book a year or more ago, but hadn’t gotten around to reading it yet, I decided it would be a quick summer read. I knew it involved a non-Christian spiritual search, but I figured I could handle it.

Ugh. This is the dumbest book I have ever read! I agree that the main character, Liz is a self-centered person (I would use a stronger term, but I am trying not to be too mean-spirited…) and instead of celebrating her courage to dump her husband, I couldn’t believe she had the gall to write about the way she treated him and expect readers to sympathize!! I feel very bad for the guy! Actually, unfortunately, he is probably well-rid of her.

I have stuck with the book so far, but it is a chore. I am somewhere about the middle and I have two other books going a the same time just to sustain myself. I may just ditch it and I not interested in seeing the movie anymore.

Sorry to have gotten sidetracked, but the actual reason I decided to post was that the scenes described in the ashram and the feelings and reactions she had sounded to me frighteningly like demon possession, rather than enlightenment. Like I say, I have not finished that section, but I was wondering if anyone else got that impression.

In Christ,
Alicia
 
The girls from work wanted to go see this movie this week. I really didn’t know anything about it. One of my friends mentioned that she didn’t want to go see it. When I asked why, she said she tried reading the book but couldn’t get through it. She does not really attend Church, but is Catholic. She said she couldn’t get past the Yoga stuff. Once I learned about the Yoga and the writers so called spirituality, I decided I could not see the movie either.

Thanks for your post, you validated my decision.
 
Where does the character get the money to do the travelling all over the world to “find herself?”

And does she not have children? Or are they grown up? Julia Roberts is around 40, so I assume that her character is around 40? At that age, I still had children at home, although they were young teens and I could have walked away from them without getting in trouble with the authorities.

Finally, does she not have a job? Is she able to just walk away from her job and know that when she comes back, the job will still be there? Lucky!

Those are my objections to this story. Most women after a divorce barely have enough money to travel down the road to a state park and stay in a tent. And most women have children that they can’t just walk away from. And most employers would not hold a job for more than a few weeks or months (I think that by law, jobs have to be held for 90 days for a medical disability? I could be wrong about this.)

If someone wants to write a novel about a divorced woman “finding herself,” why not write about a real woman who has no money, a couple of dependent children, and a job that she doesn’t really like, but is lucky to have in this day and age. Actually, quite a few novels have been written about women like this; I recommend many of the beautifully-written novels by Anne Rivers Siddons. (Caution, they do contain illicit sex, but it’s not graphically done. Siddons is known for her settings, not her sex scenes.)

Or just read my novels (see my website!). 😃 I guarantee you’ll be uplifted.
 
I wouldnt know since I couldnt finish the book. I got so bored with it. I am glad to see I am not the only one who felt this way about the book though sometimes if good to be validated
 
My friend emailed me yesterday telling me that she was going to take her teen daughter and her daughter’s friend to see EPL at the theater. I was shocked she would even consider taking them to see this type of movie since she is very picky as to what her children watch and listen to. I felt that I needed to warn her before they went. I told her to at least read the reviews and know what she was getting in to. She emailed me back saying the girls decided to go shopping instead, but she said her sis-in-law read the book and saw the movie and said it was soooo good. She almost brushed off my comments as crazy and unfounded…how could her sis-in-law be wrong since they are both very evangelical believing Christians?

I am very relieved that this thread was here to validate my thoughts about the book and movie. The book has been passed around to the women of my family of different ages and tastes, and no one liked it! None of us finished reading it. It is nice to read others comments here and know I am not losing my mind!
 
GIR said:
I think I know what Joan of Arc would do… and it involves a sword and a pike 😃
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👍
Poor S. Joan broke her special sword beating off a ‘girl’ her soldiers had sneaked into camp…I don’t that character in the novel would be worth the waste.
 
Hi Cat,

Actually she supposedly had a good income from her writing career, though her divorce took a lot of it. She didn’t have children because she left her husband mostly, I think, because she didn’t want to to start a family. Other commitments…who knows.

I finally got through the second section of the book, but I decided not to torture myself further and it has gone by the wayside, so I guess I will not find out about her new love affair in the last section. Alas.

In Christ,
Alicia
 
Steve Greydanus from DecentFilms.com wrote a great review (as in the review is great, the book and movie are awful). Here it is:

The Oprahfication of Religion

Just FYI, the book is not a novel. It is not fiction. It is a memoir. It catalogues the authors own personal journey, from her perspective, of course.
 
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