Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Wonderfully written by an incongruous person

First, let me get out of the way the fact that I thought this was an excellent book. I wouldn't have thought that to read about a woman spending 4 months in Italy, India and Indonesia would have made for such good reading, but I was wrong. It shows that, if a writer is talented enough (and Ms. Gilbert surely is), anything can be made interesting. She comes off as funny, extroverted, thoughtful, charming and--especially--brutally honest about herself. In fact, she is so open with her readers that at times, I felt like I was reading her private diary or something that anyone else would write only to their closest confidante. While I was reading the book however, I kept thinking about something else entirely: I wonder what it would be like to go out with this woman? (Given that this book seems to have a 99% female readership judging from the reviews, and I am not, I suspect that few others were wondering the same thing.) Anyway, here is what I thought about. On the plus side, she's a wonderful writer which tells me that she must be very intelligent and that's obviously a good thing. Her looks? Quite attractive ... I think. I say that because the only photos I've seen are the one on the dust jacket (which is very flattering) and one on her website, which is pleasant enough but in which she looks like a completely different woman. On the minus side however, she seems to have an incongruous combination of personality traits. For example, when it comes to men, she seems simultaneously incredibly independent and yet incredibly needy. I suspect that this combination may have played a role in the troubles she had with her husband and with "David". To me, one of the most revealing paragraphs in the book is on page 65 where she talks about her "boundary issues with men". She tells us that when she's in love with a man, she gives herself over to him completely until she becomes so exhausted that it's time to become infatuated with someone else. Virtually by her own admission,...