Review by Amanda Hampson

Elizabeth Gilbert’s search for personal fulfilment has sold over 10 million copies and is set to take off again with the release of the movie adaptation and tie-in publication. The right book at the right time, it has evidently tapped into a generation of women who have it all but are more lost than ever. In Eat Pray Love she shares the tale of her marriage breakdown and doomed rebound love-affair, the end of which propels her into the wider world on a mission to find ‘meaning’. She starts her journey in Rome, connecting with the joys of food, then on to India for spiritual  enlightenment and finally to Bali where she hooks up with the (Brazilian) man of her dreams. 

It’s a self-absorbed journey by a borderline neurotic but Gilbert’s self-deprecating humour, observant eye and top-notch writing skills make it an involving and entertaining read. Does the movie do it justice? The visual medium of film allows us to witness the birth of an emotion but Gilbert (played by Julia Roberts) has so many emotions we end up with an overpopulation problem. Roberts does her best to depict the perpetually lovelorn Gilbert but weepy moments and wishy-washy dialogue fail to make it meaningful, let alone funny, in the way Gilbert achieves in her writing.

Amanda Hampson is the author of The Olive Sisters and Two for the Road and also runs fiction and memoir writing workshops:www.thewriteworkshops.com.