When a young Liz Gilbert married and settled down in New York City, she believed she could handle anything and everything by age 30. Just after reaching 30, all Gilbert wanted was to get far, far away from the life she was living.

After struggling through a life-changing divorce, isolation, and severe depression, Gilbert made a decision to go into the world and discover what she truly wanted in life. Eat, Pray, Love follows her year-long journey to what she describes as “the three I’s:” Italy, India, and Indonesia. Gilbert assigns a new theme to live by with each country she visits.

In Rome, Gilbert finds herself on the ultimate journey for pleasure. She comes to Italy with only two goals: learn how to speak Italian (her favorite romance language,) and eat all the Italian food she can find. The only restriction to her pleasure is the fact that she’s sworn herself to celibacy, which proves to be a difficult feat once she befriends a handsome pair of young Italian twins. Despite her struggles with depression, Liz manages to make new friends at an alarming rate. With so few adventures involved in their everyday lives, they are all-the-more excited to make her journey spectacular. Her travels and antics with friends new and old are reminiscent of a college student exploring the world for the first time.

From one extreme to another, Liz travels to India in order to experience religious transcendence. The focus goes from searching for what makes her happy to a minimalist lifestyle in an Ashram where her main priorities are praying, meditating, and working to support the community. It’s not an easy transition, but she bears through it with the help of an array of diverse characters entering her life, including a 13-year-old Indian girl, a straight-talking redneck from Texas, and a plumber/poet from New Zealand. It is here that she finally learns how to let go of her past and love herself, but it’s not all fluffy fun and games.

With her feelings in check, Liz moves once again to the small island of Bali off the coast of Indonesia. It is here that she goes on a quest to find the perfect balance between pleasure and spirituality. She goes to the island without any plans of her own, but finds herself in the oddest and most appealing company yet. Her biggest fans are Ketut, an Indonesian medicine man who is somewhere between 65 and 112-year-old, and Wayan, a single mother outcast by an extremely traditional society. They introduce Liz to a life unlike anything she has ever experienced. In particular, Wayan introduces her to a group of expatriates that change her journey forever. Can she possibly find contentment in her life at the end of the journey?

Eat, Pray, Love is an honest, humbling book for anyone who loves a good adventure. Gilbert has a slick writing style and a biting sense of humor that keeps the story from getting dull or fluffy. The beginning of the book, which focuses on her divorce and mid-life crisis, is a fairly daunting read, but is necessary for the story to truly progress. That being said, the book is not Liz-centric. She tells the story of every friend around her and manages to make them all seem equally fascinating. This collection of small stories are arranged together to create an unforgettable tale.

Eat, Pray, Love. Author: Elizabeth Gilbert. Reviewed by Kait S. Page Count: 352. Published in February 2006.