I am loathe to write this review. How impossible to translate into words the blissful experience that is Elizabeth Gilbert. Honestly I don’t have an Oprah book club membership.  And I’m very much not always so in the loop with what the rest of the world is reading. In school I was always the kid who got into a song after everyone else stopped listening to it. My grown up world differs only in that I don’t really care about getting it right anymore. I decided to read Eat, Pray, Love after seeing a TedEx talk that Elizabeth Gilbert did. A fellow writer sent me the link thinking I might find her inspiring. She entranced me completely. Here was this beautiful creature and I swear to God she was speaking straight into my soul. And so I picked up her book over the December holidays and got completely lost in it. I laughed and cried and I sunk in to the deepest of depressions. I wish I could write like that. Because this book was the absolute embodiment of what I want MY writing to be. The naked honesty, the poignant truths, the humanity. Everything about it made me jealous as all hell. Elizabeth tells of her journey in search of physical and spiritual fulfillment in such a brave manner. Her experiences are something anyone would long for. From her relationship with food and wine in Italy to the spiritual awakening in India and falling in love in Indonesia, I couldn’t stop turning the pages At the risk of sounding redundant, it really is the kind of book that every woman should read. And every man should read it too, if for no other reason than to better understand women. It’s definitely a book I will re-read for many years to come.

Why I give it a ten: It’s  an important book. And every woman should read it.