Eat Pray Love

It probably says alot more about me than it does about Elizabeth Gilbert, that I thought the book was okay rather than terrific. Prior to reading the book, I had read that Liz had financed her year of self discovery on a book advance and this influenced my expectations of the book. Would it have been a different story and a different experience if the outcome was not a book to begin with? At the outset I didn't really warm to Liz. She seemed to me to be a privileged, educated, young, middle class, white American woman who had everything and yet was moaning about her life.  All I could think was get a grip. I especially liked Richard the Texan's comment to Liz, 'keep cultivating the gratitude'. What I take from this middle class, middle aged, white western woman's girls' own adventure is: count your blessings and be thankful that you aren't 'one of those poor Indian women busting up rocks by the side of the road' (Richard the Texan, page 198) or a woman who has suffered genital mutilation, or an Afghani woman fearful of the Taliban, or any woman not allowed an education or the right to control her fertility, or subject to domestic violence or to a marriage dowry or to an 'honour' killing or aborted because she is not male or trafficked for sex because she is female.......the transgressions against human rights goes on.
By the end, I was glad that Liz had found happiness, that she could put things into perspective and I wish her all the very best with her life.