Read: Eat, Pray, Love

I admit. I was one of the nasty people who scoffed at the premise of Eat, Pray, Love when I first heard about it.

What? Rich lady travels the world to eat, pray and love? I immediately filed it under Stuff Other People Read, right next to Twilight.

Guess what, I read Twilight last month and I just finished Eat, Pray, Love (one hour ago, to be exact).

First off, I should have never put Eat, Pray, Love next to Twilight in my mind. Twilight needs to be thrown in a fire, along with the movie franchise and shirtless boys.

I watched the Julia Roberts movie. The Liz Gilbert inside is totally NOT the one in the book who tells you about her life changing year in Italy, India and Indonesia. The supporting characters in the movie are not people but cliches and stereotypes meant for us movie goers to feel familiar with. “Oh, yes, that bad tempered man who turns out to be good.” “Yes, I’ve seen women like her, insecure about how she would not fit in her jeans after a pizza.” (The Sophie in the book didn’t do that but Hollywood does.)

To be honest, I never would have touched Liz Gilbert’s books if not for her book on marriage which my friend D found in the library. She sounds sensible and funny.

More info on her book from her site. (Mind the Comic Sans in the following link) Committed: A Love Story. I remembered it as Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage though. Publishing industry is the same as Hollywood, it seems.

I decided to give her a go and went in search at the library. I passed by Phillipa Gregory’s books (GRE) and went to GIL. Strange. there wasn’t EPL but a bunch of her other stuff.

After giving up, I went to the travel section to get inspiration for my RTW (round the world). 

Amazingly, there EPL was. In the travel section!

Two copies, one a tattered paperback and a hardback. I picked the papertback version along with Mark Twain’s book. (I later decided I will leave Twain for a some other time.)

I loved the book. It was engaging. I laughed at places (dsecription of Italian boys with chocolate eyes), shed tears at others (forgot which part) and enjoyed myself throughout the book. Of course, in the chapters for India, I looked at the chapter number wishing she would find God faster and get to Indonesia.

How has the book changed me? I think I’m more interested in proving to people that you (real meaning here is: I) can travel the world to do whatever it is you want (Gilbert’s being to eat, pray and unexpectedly love) on a small budget (her budget was probably bigger than what my future budget is).

Do I hope to get a book contract at the end of my RTW? I can’t even keep a travel blog, let alone a whole book? I just want to experience the world, and do something crazy before I am too old too.

Deviated from the topic, didn’t I? ;)