“Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage” by Elizabeth Gilbert

Yay or Nay?

Yay! (72%)

Consensus: Yes, there is a sequel to “Eat, Pray, Love.” No, it’s not the crowd pleaser the first one was.

Description: At the end of her bestselling memoir “Eat, Pray, Love,” Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe, a Brazilian-born man of Australian citizenship who’d been living in Indonesia when they met. Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous bad divorces. Enough said.) But … [more]

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23 Book Reviews for “Committed” by Elizabeth Gilbert

Much of the book is like a reading assignment for History of Marriage 101…. When the book explores Gilbert’s life, family and husband, her passions shine through. Unfortunately, those parts are few and far between.

Published the 3rd day of January, 2010 in St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Reviewed by Judith Evans | Full Review
Amid all that less than encouraging history of marriage, does Gilbert find her comfort zone? She does, and from a rather unlikely source. Not to go all Charlotte Bronte on you, but: Reader, she marries him. And just as it was in Eat, Pray, Love, the journey is one that entertains and illuminates.
Published the 3rd day of January, 2010 in St. Petersburg Times | Reviewed by Colette Bancroft | Full Review
The book is strongest when Gilbert focuses on telling her own story. By contrast, heavily researched chapters like “Marriage and History” feel more academic, which would be OK except that she is not making a coherent argument about marriage so much as trying to talk herself into it…. Readers who delighted in the joie de vivre that bubbled throughout “Eat, Pray, Love” may find this comparatively dreary.
Published the 3rd day of January, 2010 in San Francisco Chronicle | Reviewed by Malena Watrous | Full Review
While professing to be candid, she is chronically evasive when describing the intimate relationships of her life…. Gilbert suffers from a need to package everything for us too tidily. She seems to almost unconsciously be channeling the unbearable lightness of Oprah — the same smugness, the self-righteousness, the limited introspection, the need for easy answers, the aversion to psychological complexity and the continual flight from her own sadness.
Published the 3rd day of January, 2010 in The Denver Post | Reviewed by Elaine Margolin | Full Review
A deeply compassionate, painstakingly researched and often laugh-out-loud-funny treatise on marriage…. With this book, she gracefully, brilliantly transitions from personal memoirist into social historian.
Published the 3rd day of January, 2010 in The Dallas Morning News | Reviewed by Joy Tipping | Full Review
May turn off readers who fell in love with “Eat, Pray, Love” for its highly personal tone, it may also attract a new following to Gilbert’s work, one that appreciates its gratifyingly broadened and more mature focus.
Published the 2nd day of January, 2010 in Star Tribune | Reviewed by Susan Comninos | Full Review
The success of “Eat, Pray, Love” drags on the new book like a lead ball and chain…. Gilbert … seems to have reverted to a comfortable journalistic distance in this book. The problem is that this is a first-person account and the subject is love, and her life. She tells readers that she loves Felipe, but nowhere does she show a truly unique, poignant moment. She talks of her anguish about marriage, but it is never proved in the actions between them. Gilbert is far too skilled not to be entertaining, but forgive a reader thirsting for more emotion.
Published the 3rd day of January, 2010 in Los Angeles Times | Reviewed by Samantha Dunn | Full Review
When Gilbert feeds us bits from the colorful history of marriage, the result is a condensed and chatty lesson. Imagine hearing expert Stephanie Coontz … read her work aloud — after sucking on a helium balloon. Lots of fascinating history, only funnier.
Published the 9th day of January, 2010 in The Seattle Times | Reviewed by Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett | Full Review
The anthropological musing feels like a distraction from what really matters, which is the relationship at hand, and frankly Liz’s academic gaze could benefit from a stiff turn inward to explore her own neurosis…. Mostly the book feels rushed and not really fully formed as a concept. What could have been a very romantic story … is diffused of tension and made almost trite by Liz’s exhaustive research.
Published the 9th day of January, 2010 in The Oregonian | Reviewed by Chelsea Cain | Full Review
As a tour guide to both Asia and matrimony, Gilbert is consistently entertaining and illuminating and often funny. That said, something about the premise and structure of this book feels off…. Neither-fish-nor-fowl…. The book is rather chatty and personal to be so heavy on research, but it’s rather researched to be so chatty and personal…. Such shifts … made me feel lost as a reader.
Published the 7th day of January, 2010 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Curtis Sittenfeld | Full Review
When vulnerable authenticity is your stock in trade, a sexy Brazilian partner, globe-trotting itinerary, and multi-million-dollar bank account start to seem like liabilities, not assets. Only a terrifically self-assured and self-aware writer could navigate these hazards without succumbing to smugness or whining, and somehow Gilbert pulls it off.
Published the 10th day of January, 2010 in The Boston Globe | Reviewed by Kate Tuttle | Full Review
This story is essentially journalism, written by an extremely competent journalist. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than that. It’s a charming narrative that ends, Shakespearean-fashion, with a happy-hearted wedding. What’s not to like?
Published the 7th day of January, 2010 in The Washington Post | Reviewed by Carolyn See | Full Review
It’s exactly the memory of how good Gilbert’s first memoir was that makes her second one such a disappointment. In “Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage,” the stubborn honesty becomes obsessive navel-gazing, the humor is in short supply and what was lyrical turns ordinary…. This is one Gilbert book that might have benefited if its restless author had stayed closer to home.
Published the 9th day of January, 2010 in Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel | Reviewed by Joanne Weintraub | Full Review
But despite its faults, “Committed” remains an incredibly thorough, introspective, and ultimately engaging examination into one of life’s most permeating, sought-after social constructs. And this fact alone makes it a book that begs to be read.
Published the 5th day of January, 2010 in The Christian Science Monitor | Reviewed by Kate Vander Wiede | Full Review
“Committed” is carefully and often winningly argued, but I did miss the more character-driven narrative of her blockbuster and the sensual physical locations.
Published the 5th day of January, 2010 in The Plain Dealer | Reviewed by Paula McLain | Full Review
Sad to say, “Committed” is … less humane. One of Ms. Gilbert’s most endearing qualities in her first memoir was her sunny generosity toward those who see the world differently. In “Committed,” she shows less liberality.
Published the 6th day of January, 2010 in The Wall Street Journal | Reviewed by Meghan Cox Gurdon | Full Review
The strain is as palpable as the voice is cute, and the drama is virtually nonexistent…. anything-goes argument and reportage, much of it headed exactly nowhere…. Less of a follow-up than an excuse to tread water.
Published the 3rd day of January, 2010 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Janet Maslin | Full Review
The more she luxuriates in her dithering on What It Is All About — the more Committed loses its brightness, sharpness, and sense of welcome. Conducting her own makeshift investigation via further international travel, she draws grandiose conclusions from limited anecdotal input.
Published the 4th day of January, 201 in Entertainment Weekly | Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum | Full Review
Gilbert’s ambivalence about marriage is genuine. I don’t believe she even cared enough about the process to delve properly into its history, which is why sections of this book feel so cursory and forced. But this doesn’t make it a failure…. Oprah – and millions of other women – will welcome her back with open arms.
Published the 10th day of January, 2010 in The Guardian | Reviewed by Nicola Barr | Full Review
Even when the information itself is interesting, the end result feels more like a book-length blog…. “Committed” fails when she steps out from behind the screen, Oz-like, and attempts to draw parallels between her experience and the rest of womankind.
Published the 8th day of January, 2010 in Salon | Reviewed by Amy Benfer | Full Review
Flamboyantly personal and unacademic…. Having hit the jackpot with one book about a journey around the world and herself, the prospect of a repeat was hard for her and her publishers to resist.
Published the 3rd day of February, 2010 in The Spectator | Reviewed by Anne Chisholm | Full Review
The good news is her voice is clear and winning. The bad news is the structure doesn’t work. Part history, part travelogue, “Committed” often makes for a jumpy read. Still, Gilbert remains the spirited storyteller she was in “EPL.”
Published in Publishers Weekly | Reviewed by Amy Sohn
We pick up pretty much where “Eat, Pray, Love” left off…. Gilbert is consistently entertaining and illuminating and often funny. That said, something about … this book feels off…. While her musings are usually interesting, some of the connections between her brief firsthand experiences in Asia and the larger phenomena they’re meant to illustrate seem tenuous…. The book is rather chatty and personal to be so heavy on research, but it’s rather researched to be so chatty and personal…. If the sum of the parts … add up to an awkward whole, many of those parts are nevertheless terrific.
Published the 10th day of January, 2010 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Curtis Sittenfeld | Full Review

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