It’s rare for me to not finish a book, and I almost finished this one, but I couldn’t quite get to the end.   Gilbert writes about her unhappy marriage and a failed relationship following her divorce and then about her yearlong journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia as a way of finding herself and discovering what makes her happy.  Through all of this, I got the sense that she was a little too inward focused which drove me a bit nutty.  Sometimes the way  we approach a book or the level at which we appreciate a book has a lot to do with what’s going on in our own lives.  As I persevere through cancer treatments, I try to find the good in each day: the sun shining through my window, my children playing their instruments, the lake glimmering in the distance.  Reading about Gilbert’s depression and loneliness over and over made me want to tell her to appreciate the small things and stop complaining.  Then again, I have never suffered from depression, so perhaps I do not understand what she was going through and perhaps I’m being overly critical.  There are some well written passages throughout the book, but they seem to get lost amidst overwrought descriptions of bleakness juxtaposed with overwrought descriptions of abstinence (a few months without sex seems to be the ultimate sacrifice for her).  At a different time in a different life, I might better connect with Gilbert, but now was not my time.   (memoir)