After her miserable divorce, Elizabeth Gilbert sets out to find health, peace and happiness through a one year journey to Italy, India and Indonesia. She spends four months in each location: eating her way through the Italian language and cuisine and gaining weight and strength; praying and meditating in an ashram in India and gaining inner calm and self-awareness; and befriending native and expatriate people in Bali until she gains true love. This is not a travelogue, but rather the story of a woman’s progress toward a healthy balance.
What the Armchair Critics Thought:
Gilbert is a good writer and brings you along for the trip. Unfortunately you are also there for the inner wailing and gnashing of teeth and you may find this woman remarkably self-absorbed at times. It is difficult to care about her because she provides so few clues as to her real life – friends, family, hobbies etc. Nonetheless, Gilbert brings a wry humour and wealth of observation to her journals.
