@Mangus: The author seems really, really narcissistic to me. Let’s be honest – it sucks that she realizes she doesn’t want to be with her husband and have children. I’m sorry that the love affair that she jumps right into after her breakup with her husband turns out badly. I’m sure her struggle with depression is difficult.
But come on.
She is a professional writer who makes a living at doing what she loves. She has lots of wonderful, supportive family and friends. She is relatively young and healthy. She got some publisher to finance a year of travel in three amazing places. Every time she starts to wallow in self-pity and invites us to feel sorry for her, it really turns my stomach. Like the part at the end of the Italy section when she compares her own situation to the Sicilian people who have been under the grip of the mafia for generations. The fact that she cheerfullly acknowledges “I know I can’t really compare myself to them,” doesn’t stop her from making the comparison in the first place.
It reminds me a bit of the skinny girls in 8th grade gym class, who would stare at themselves in the locker room mirrors and wail, “I’m so fat!” You would comfort them, “No you’re not, you’re thin,” but then look at yourself in the mirror and think, “Geez, if she thinks she’s fat, then I must be a cow.” Reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book made me feel a bit like that, even though her writing style is witty and I liked certain aspects (her love affair with the Italian language is pretty fun). Still, I couldn’t handle any more and had to stop reading.