Book Two "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert

I decided for my second book, that I wanted to read a book with a little more depth to it. A co-worker of mine had recommended Eat Pray Love. I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with life, and this uplifting and inspirational book sounded like a perfect read.

Elizabeth, who is recently divorced and heartbroken over another broken relationship, is looking for a different lifestyle. Being a very type A personality, she is desperately searching for way to rid her conscience of all of the guilt, anger, and shame that came with her past relationships. She decides to travel the world for a year, visiting Italy, India, and Indonesia to work on her spiritual health.

Her first destination is Italy, where she mainly works on happiness. She learns the Italian language and travels throughout the country, although she spends the bulk of her time in Rome. She finds pure pleasure in living a life void of schedules, appointments, and time restraints. She spends time with new and fascinating friends, and finds true joy in the Italian cuisine.

After her visit in Italy, she travels directly to India where she plans on spending 6 weeks in an Ashram that is ran by her guru, then the rest of the time traveling throughout India. After finishing most of her allotted time at the Ashram, she decides that is where she needs to spend the remainder of her stay in India. Through yoga and meditation, she learns to fight her inner demons. She also learns how to control all of the guilt, anger, and shame that she had been fighting with for the past few years.

The last four months of her trip is spent in Bali, Indonesia. It is there that she spends time with a medicine man named Ketut. He teaches her more meditation techniques, that help her to find balance in her life. She makes friends with another healer by the name of Wayan, a poor single mother who has fought against the patriachy in Bali in an ugly divorce. While in Bali, she also meets a Brazillian man who ends up being the man of her dreams.

Although I felt the ending was slightly predictable (woman finds man to take care of her and lives happily ever after), I did enjoy this book. I felt that her time in India was most benificial to me. It seemed as though she was fighting the same thoughts and emotions that get to me on a daily basis. It was overall a good read.