Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

I can't believe how dichotomous my thoughts are on this book. On one hand, Elizabeth Gilbert annoyed the hell out of me. On the other hand, I found myself laughing at her inane jokes. I think this is kind of how people view comedians that annoy them. When you find yourself laughing at their jokes, you turn around and try and punch your shadow for betraying you.

In terms of plot, well let's see, where to begin? How about with the letter "I". The subtitle of this book is one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia. That pretty much sums it up - what you get is essentially a journal from a despondent divorcée. She goes to Italy to find pleasure, and basically ends up fattening up on pasta and desserts. Then she goes to India and spends 80 pages searching for enlightenment - fortunately, she gets paid by the number of revelations she gets in a 300 page book; her loser self praying alone would have been a bit less interesting. Finally, she goes to Bali, and ends up avoiding the beach.

As you can probably tell from my tone, I'm not exactly her biggest fan. And yet, I enjoyed her ramblings, even if it was only to totally disagree with her, be frustrated with her inane anecdotes or to simply marvel at the sheer synchronicity of her posturing.

Go read it, just don't tell me afterwards that it was the most awe-inspiring book you ever read or it really opened your eyes; it may start thinking you don't have a brain of your own (of course, my blog sometimes supposes that you do :)

I dreaded this pesky kid and looked forward to him in equal measure.