Some Reasoning Against "Eat, Pray, Love" - Finally

Every time I say that I didn't like "Eat, Pray, Love" - I wonder why there aren't more people that didn't like it. So many women do love it, and I don't really want to say too many disparaging things about it - because I have friends that liked it... I guess I don't want to hurt their feelings by saying what I think about women who like it... If that makes sense.

But Memorist Rachel Shukert, in an article for The Wall Street Journal, touches on one of the reasons I disliked the book so much -

"At first glance, Elizabeth Gilbert is reflexively, almost compulsively self-deprecating. She criticizes herself for everything — her ever-increasing pant size, the frivolity of her inner monologue during meditation — everything, that is, except the impetus for her journey in the first place: the breakdown of her marriage. On this subject (and this subject alone), she is conspicuously silent. We hear about her grief, and her husband’s anger (at which she feigns incredulity), but if you want to really want to figure out what went down, you have to read between the lines (hint: I don’t think it was just that she didn’t want kids.) To admit that she did something genuinely hurtful, that she was not so much a victim of circumstance as lying in a bed that she herself had made, might have added real depth to her character, and made for a far more interesting book, but it would undoubtedly have made her less sympathetic to her audience. It’s hard to imagine Oprah, who rarely shrinks from moralizing on experiences she’s never had, endorsing such a work. Gilbert exchanged honesty for likability, and now she’s being played by Julia Roberts in a movie. It’s a canny trade-off, but it’s one I wish she hadn’t had to make."