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Lunch » Tags » Book » Reviews » Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

1 rating: 1.0

A book by Elizabeth Gilbert

Reviewed by Amy SohnHow does an author follow up a smash international bestseller that has catapulted her from obscurity into fame and riches she never dreamed of? Very carefully.Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, Elizabeth Gilbert's first … see full wiki

Tags: Book

Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Genre: Biographies & Memoirs, Health, Mind & Body

Publisher: Viking Adult

1 review about Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

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A good exploration of the institution of marriage

Feb 4, 2010

by Jenndon
posted in Cafe Libri: Reviewing Books & More

Rating:

I love memoir, so of course I have read and enjoyed EAT PRAY LOVE. Gilbert herself addresses the difficultly of publishing a follow-up to the kind of blockbuster success that EAT PRAY LOVE became. I wasn't necessarily holding her to that standard, but was hoping for more of the kind of personal exploration that she shared in that book.

COMMITTED is instead written like a project memoir (which I also like). Books such as The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible or The Happiness Project where the author is on some sort of personal quest and he or she supplements it by researching the subject etc. Gilbert approached this memoir this way -- sharing her personal experiences, yes, but mostly explaining or reacting to other studies she's read on marriage (and divorce), or laws, or social commentary on the institution.

She's not trying to change the world (well, she might be trying to sway thoughts/laws) -- she's telling her story. She's telling why she chose love, and why she had chosen to be unmarried and child-free.

If you are looking for information on the institution of marriage -- particularly if you feel disenfranchised from it, either by divorce, or singleness (by choice or circumstance), or exclusion (by the legal definition of marriage), this is a good book (4 star at least).

However, I give this 3.5 stars NOT because it's not EAT PRAY LOVE, because that's not what I expected, nor even what she promised. I wanted more of Elizabeth Gilbert's personal searching, and perhaps more of an afterward about the reality of how marriage has been a good (or bad) thing, but the book didn't go that far.

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