I'm two-thirds through the book now. The first section was enjoyable as it was centered on her time in Italy. It also was the part in which she outlined the struggles she was having before she began her quest/journey. That part was more painful. Her tales of Italy spoke of incredibly delicious food prepared with love and deep care. It made my mouth water.
For a fiction book to work for me, I have to buy into it through the often referred to "suspension of disbelief." If you can't suspend the disbelief, you keep pulling yourself out of the story and thus the story does not really work. It loses its power, it casts no spell. With memoirs it seems something else has to suspended. Cynicism and/or being judgemental perhaps? To embrace a memoir fully I have to be open to how the author is experiencing things. I mention this as I process the section about India in the book. Her experiences in the ashram are different in many ways from my life, just as she, as a person, is different in many ways from me. Yet as the book progresses, I find myself noticing more and more the connections between the author and me rather than the differences that I focused on earlier in the book. While her journey is not mine, I am drawn into her experiences and her revelations. I use them as a lens through which to view my own experiences.
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