Book Review: Eat, Pray, Love

So, I took the plunge. After having admired the cover, and seen the ads for the movie, and heard the buzz about how great "EPL" is, I finally caved in and bought a copy. Now, generally, I tend to shy away from NYT bestsellers and wildly-successful popular books, because, well, they don't really do it for me. Sadly and often, the books that make it these days are either dull, poorly written, or--worst of all--both.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect when I read the first pages of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Would it be a chirpy, women's empowerment book? A preachy "I love God a lot and you wish you could love Him as much as me" book? A mixture of Jane Austen Book Club and the Bible?

My first reaction? It's *extremely* well-written. It's engaging. It's structured in a really cool way. I like it. I like it a lot.

This is one of the best books I have read in a while: witty, cool and contemporary, deeply emotional, and yet filled with such joy. Gilbert is an artist. She not only drws you into her impressive and fascinating journey around the globe, but also into the deppest and some of the darkest parts of her soul. You feel her. You want to be there with her. She's simultaneously someone to admire and to be best friends with.
This is definitely not an easy read; it requires a lot of time and thought. But it's also (definitely) not a prayer book or a preachy "how to get your life together" book; it's one woman's exploration of herself. And in her discoveries and her joy, you, too, find joy. After all, joy, like melancholy, is contagious.