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chalkletters's review
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
3.25
I enjoyed Sushi and Beyond so much that I instantly decided to read the rest of Michael Booth’s books, assuming I’d love them all just as much. In practice, they’ve been hit or miss, and none have risen to the level of that first experience. Last time I read Eat, Pray, Eat, I didn’t get much out of it. I’ve been somewhat dreading having to reread it just because it’s the only one of Michael Booth’s books I actually own. (I gave the other two as gifts, respectively before or after reading them myself.)
There’s not as much food writing in Eat, Pray, Eat as that title, and Michael Booth’s previous works, might imply. While there are snippets of descriptions of Indian foods, dishes are not described in detail, nor is any attention given to how things are cooked. If you are hoping Eat, Pray, Eatwill be for India what Sushi and Beyond was for Japan, you will be disappointed.
As with The Sex Lives of Cannibals and Charlotte Street, what you get instead of food in the first half of Eat, Pray, Eat is quite a lot of whining and dissatisfaction from a British, middle-class, middle-aged man. Michael Booth is slightly more self-aware of just how much sympathy this actually deserves, which makes it more tolerable. It certainly sets up the second half of Eat, Pray, Eat, which has even less food writing in it than the first half.
Despite this, the prose throughout the book is consistently engaging and enjoyable. Writing about meditation — clearing your mind of anything but breath or a mantra — really shouldn’t be interesting, and yet, Michael Booth manages it. This is the kind of travel writing that focuses on people and their idiosyncrasies, rather than sights seen. Michael and his family do visit some tourist hotspots, but they don’t linger and not that much description is given.
Eat, Pray, Eat is a different book than I was expecting, but once I was able to get past that, I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction and Alcoholism
Minor: Animal cruelty
jennjuniper's review
4.0
I sort of just wanted a book about Indian food that is frankly too spicy for me to eat, and I got a pleasing amount of that, although I also got very caught up in Michael’s very personal breakdown and am so pleased he found some equilibrium at the end! It was a bit of a surreal read in that I found him to be a strangely accurate mix of my (dead) alcoholic father, and me, in that his thoughts and reactions to various situations struck a little too close to home in places. Funny and enjoyable, and I’m glad I read it, but it did end up being slightly harder work than I’d anticipated.
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