Likes:
Anything travel related. Immerse me in new places, people, and cultures.
The idea of searching for a greater understanding of spirituality.
Recognizing something about your life you want to change – and changing it.
Putting your mind, heart, and personal ideas out there for other to people to read and judge. Whether you agree with her conclusions or feel she accomplished her goal, putting it all out there takes guts.

Dislikes:
I think Elizabeth Gilbert is a little bit whiny and sort of comes across as an entitled, self absorbed, 30 something looking to ‘find’ herself.
For someone living in these three amazing places, I felt Elizabeth Gilbert spent a lot of time surrounded by other expats and ended up being more of a spectator or tourist.
I’m not sure she did anything in her search for spirituality abroad that she couldn’t have done where she was.
She is openly looking for personal spirituality and a higher power, but only follows the first path she comes across and doesn’t really look anywhere else.
She seeks pleasure in Italy, but follows a preconceived set of rules about what pleasure is.
It ended with a romance. Wow. I don’t mind if she finds love, but to end the book like that feels like the moral of the story is leave your problems behind by taking a huge vacation, try to get right with yourself and god, and start over with a new man. I’m not sure this is what I hoped to take away from this book. I felt slightly disappointed that the promises of personal revelation and spiritual enlightenment were sort of forgotten and discarded in favor of ‘balance’ and an exciting new lover.

To summarize I enjoyed this book a lot. I liked following her thoughts, ideas, and choices as she struggled with some large questions. Even when I felt unfulfilled by the answers in the book, I enjoyed thinking about the questions and appreciate the struggle. In defence of Elizabeth Gilbert, I have heard lots of people refer to her as selfish. I am going to disagree and call her self absorbed. A grown woman with no kids can make her own decisions, and I don’t begrudge anyone who has the funds and inclination to travel for a year doing whatever they want.

All slight sarcasm aside I actually liked this book. It was well written, well paced, and draws an interesting and complex new world. I felt the author did a great job of thinking the plot through and eliminating any large plot holes. (A pet peeve of mine with some science fiction.) I enjoyed the character portrayals, most of them torn between love and duty, and driven by love, fear, loyalty, and hate. I found it interesting the powerful women characters in the book were not wives and liked the way that was portrayed. Some of the most interesting plot lines in the book revolved around the planet itself. On a planet with such small amounts of available water it was very interesting to imagine the incredible importance of it and the ways in which your life would revolve around acquiring, retaining and reusing that precious resource. I have been trying to branch out and get my feet wet in science fiction and only wish I had read Dune at the beginning of my foray, and not towards the end as I’m starting to burn out. Did I love it? Not really, but it is the best science fiction book I’ve read in the last five years (I think) and I will get the next one in the series. I said before I read it I would be done science fiction after Dune, but now I guess I have to find out what happens next. Good heavens, what have I done, I think there are about a million and one books in this series. Ahkk, maybe i’m becoming a fan, ha ha. I’m also a little apprehensive to watch the 1984 film by David Lynch (but how can I not?).

As a side note, I noticed on Wikipedia that (unnamed) ‘scholars’ have compared Dune to Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Ummmmm, Wikipedia said the same thing about Foundation by Isaac Asimov. So I’m beginning to think I just need to read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and imagine it in space.

I think the author masterfully showed the passing of love and personal history from mother to daughter. Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah, “Like any sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges. They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember.” Remembering women’s earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this magnificent book. I wish all the characters that were so alive and loved in the beginning of the book were followed through to the end. I know Dinah’s story moved away from them, but I was sad to hear of their fates from such a distance. I will remember this book for a long time to come. There were a few sexual scenes and some people may not agree with Anita Diamant’s interpretation of the biblical text.