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Book Review

A Book for Tutti  //Eat, Pray, Love// is a remarkable tale of one women’s search for spiritually, self independence, and love. The memoir of Elizabeth Gilbert is an inspiring epic tale full of great insight into the ideas of God and the balance of life. Elizabeth Gilbert’s tales of Italy, India, and Indonesia is just like being with a personal tour guide; it is the next best thing from actually going to the counties. Full of love, humorous anecdotes, spiritually insight and lot of delicious food, //Eat, Pray, Love// is one of the best books to read in a person’s spare time. In the memoir Liz tries to regain balance in her life after her missy divorce and even more disastrous love affair, with the much younger David. The main thing Liz trying to encourage the read to do is find balance in their lives so they can find happiness, Through her idea of a balance life is a little extreme and should not to taking to literally. Throughout the book, Liz tries to be like the picture an old medicine man, Ketut, gave her after she asked him how she can find balance in her life. Ketut tells her that she should live her life like the picture if she wants to find balance To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it’s like you have four legs, instead of two that way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through you head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way you will know God. (27) She finds her balance while on her journey through the places she goes to and the new friends that she meets.  The character of Liz Gilbert revolves all around this idea of balance and the search to find it. It is through this motivation to find it that she goes on her journey for pleasure, devotion, and balancing. “I want to explore the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the art of balancing the two. (30)” Her writing is short and easy to read and the humor and analysis throughout the book keeps light and really gets the read think about the way of the world. Some problems with her memoir are in India the book start to drag on and her writing start to go all over the place. Also her personal discoveries about the world start giving annoying after a while.  Each section of the book highlight one of Liz personal pursuit: the pleasure of eating in Italy, the devotion to God in pray during her time in India, and the balance of the two in Indonesia, finding love in herself and others. Although Liz’s writing about India focus the most on her spiritually insight, the whole book can easily be called a spiritual memoir. It is a good book to read but don’t think of it as a self-help book. It’s a good book to be thrown in to a beach bag for fun, and should not be expected to change a person’s life.