Tanmayee Yenumula: Outside Readings (Set 3): Book Review 1.9.11

Jennifer Egan’s book review over Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love was quite interesting and very well written. Egan makes use of a New Historicist critical approach in reviewing the book. Throughout the review, Egan made sure to talk about Elizabeth Gilbert’s background and how it affected the text. Granted, if she hadn’t mentioned Gilbert’s background, Egan would have written a truly horrendous book review, given the fact that Gilbert’s book is semi-autobiographical. However, Egan made this book review stand out because she analyzed how Gilbert’s background affected the book and how that in turn impacted the readers.

One of the very first things that Egan does is to introduce us to the character of Elizabeth Gilbert. She immediately pulls a quote that reflects that Gilbert is far from being perfect. She is full of flaws and that is what allows us to relate to the character so easily. By pointing out the ability to connect with the narrator, Egan makes the book sound more appealing to us. Egan even makes a comparison between another non-fiction work of Gilbert’s with Eat Pray Love. Egan covers almost every aspect of the background of the book, from the inspiration to Gilbert as a character.

However, Egan also does focus on reviewing the book itself. She identifies the book’s main themes and states that Eat Pray Love “is built on the notion of a woman trying to heal herself from a severe emotional and spiritual crisis”. Egan talks about the tone and mentions that what comes out “strongly is her charisma”. Another aspect that makes this review stand out, is that while Egan praises Gilbert, she does not hesitate to criticize some weaker points and flaws in the book. Egan states that in regards to the overall story, Gilbert’s “crisis remains a shadowy thing, a mere platform for the actions she takes to alleviate it”. She also states that Gilbert’s “sassy prose is flattened by the task of describing her approach to the divine, and the midsection of the book, at the ashram, drags”. Egan made use of the techniques of elevated language and imagery in order to review the book, using the best of her abilities to promote the book as well as analyze it.

I could connect this piece to a previous book review that I had read for my last set of outside readings. This was a different approach compared to the other one, in that this focused more on analyzing the literary techniques used by Gilbert, and the impact it had on the reader. The other book review, reviewing George W. Bush’s book, focused on the controversial issues and analyzing Bush’s account.

This piece had many strengths and very few weaknesses. This piece was very strong in that it had more than enough analysis about Gilbert’s background and its impact on the book. Egan also made use of fantastic diction choices in her analysis of Gilbert’s book. The thing that I most like about this review was that Egan did not hesitate to point out flaws in the book. I did not notice any glaring weaknesses.