1 of 12

As you may note in the previous post, one of my goals for my next year of life is to read a new book every month (or as I interpret it, at least 12 books a year; some months may be better, some may be worse). So, here is my first book I read, and my review:

I am glad that I bought this book. Otherwise, I may not have pushed myself to make it through the first five chapters. My first impression of Elizabeth Gilbert: she is whiny. The first five chapters are all disclaimers about why she didn't do this or why she didn't do that. If she wouldn't have told me about it, I would never have known any better. She wrote the book so that it has 108 chapters, coinciding with the number of prayer beads in an Indian Mala. My only assumption about why she included these first chapters is because she needed fillers, more chapters until it equaled 108. That's my hope, anyway.

The book is divided into three parts: Italy, India, and Indonesia. Elizabeth documents her travels through these countries and through her life as she copes with a pre-midlife crisis and more tangibly, her divorce. She is seeking to find herself, her spirituality, and develop a relationship with God. As I was reading, I found multiple parallels between my life and hers and it drew me into the story more and more. I think this book will really appeal to the crowd who like the self-help section of the book store (I am a self-proclaimed self-help junkie). Elizabeth catalogs her way through her own self-help self discovery tour of the world! I found myself writing down phrases from the book that I thought were profound and life changing. Mantras! Most of the time, when I do this, these phrases get lost in a notebook somewhere on a shelf, never to be seen again. Alas....

I would definitely recommend this book to others. It was enjoyable most of the time. When it got a little wordy and boring, I just had to remember, the chapters are short!