I have to be honest . . . I don't see what all of the hype was about. I really did not like this book at all but like with all books, when I start reading a book I always have to finish it.
This book is about a Elizabeth's journey through divorce, a passion for all things Italian and a spirtual journey that takes her to both India and Indonesia. While I do think it is fascinating that someone would be able to take a year of their life to travel the world, I thought that the stories, relationships and descriptions of the places she visited were lacking. To me, she skipped around--a lot--so that I never developed any connection with any of the people she talked about.
The one appealing person, the Medicine Man in Indonesia, was fascinating but once she was on her "love journey" his part in the book was pushed aside.
I found her spiritual journey to be too far out there and metaphysical for me. Even though I am a Christian, I can appreciate Elizabeth's spiritual journey and can certainly relate to a lot of the questions and doubts that she had; however, her description of the Ashram, her guru and reaching certain levels of enlightenment seemed too '60's for me and I could never picture a white woman from New York City trying to reach different levels of Heaven through yoga and meditation.
Even with the disconnect between the author and myself, the whole time I was reading it I kept asking myself, "Why did everyone think this book was so fantastic? Life-changing-really?".
I don't know, maybe it was just me. I think that I am a pretty open-minded person and can usually relate on some level to the characters, or in this case real-life person, in the books that I read but with Elizabeth Gilbert's journey I just couldn't.
Let me know if you have read it and what you think.
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