I finished this book ages ago, but never got around to writing about it. I guess I'm better at keeping up my other blog than this one.Written by Elizabeth Gilbert, this is a story about a year of her life when she travels to find inner peace, essentially. She has just finished a nasty divorce and wants to find herself. The first part of her year is spent in Italy (the "eat" part). She gains a lot of weight as she eats the delicious food and learns a lot from the Italian people while she studies the Italian language. I loved this section of the book. I think her voice is so honest and endearing.
The second leg of her trip is spent in India in her guru's ashram. I of course had heard of gurus, but I had never heard of an ashram and didn't know that Yoga was a religion and not just stretching exercises. In the ashram she has spiritual experiences as she learns to come to terms with her true self through meditation. I found this section of the book very interesting (because I don't know much about the religion), but also I thought there were golden nuggets of truth that were universal to all religions, including mine. I really enjoyed reading and learning from her experiences.
The last section is when she spends time in Bali. She went to Bali 2 years prior and had met a medicine man. He predicted she would come back to live in Bali for a time, so she did. Again, I didn't know much about the Balinese culture (if anything at all), so it was interesting to see the country through a westerner's eyes. Here she meets a man from Brazil named Felipe (and since the section is the "love" section, I'll let you figure out what happens in Bali!). Anyway, I think it served as the perfect ending to her journey because she had found herself and peace before she met a man and fell in love with him. It's my opinion that love works out so much better when you can love yourself first and then give love to the other.
I highly recommend the book, and yes! This is a non-fiction book I actually finished and enjoyed! Maybe because it was more of a memoir/biography than anything else, but I found it very easy to read, engaging and enlightening. I hear they're making a movie out of it (what book isn't these days) and Julia Roberts will play Liz. Should be interesting, but I'm not sure a movie will be able to convey the transformation she goes through as well as the book does. We'll see!
