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grayduck's review
Reviewed on 5/15/2009
So. Last year I read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and did not have the most positive reaction to it. I thought that it was pretty much a spoiled rich woman's self-indulgent soliloquies about how she flitted about the globe "finding herself" by appropriating ideas from Exotic Cultures. It was well written, though. She's a good writer.
Not long after I read that book, I heard about Drink, Play, F@#k and knew that I just HAD to read it. After a long wait, it showed up at my library and I finally got to dig into it.
It's premise is this: the author is a middle-aged man with a wife named Elizabeth. His wife suddenly has a breakdown and decides to leave him. After shacking up with some guy for a while, she leaves on a year-long whirlwind trip around the world to "find herself". The author thinks, "Well, I want to find myself too." Not interested in scrubbing ashram floors or meditating, he decides to go to Ireland to drink, Vegas to play, and Thailand to get a little action*.
Drink, Play, F@#k isn't as well written as Eat, Pray, Love, but it sure is funny. I'd recommend it to anybody who read Eat, Pray, Love and got tired of Elizabeth's navel-gazing. It pokes fun at Eat, Pray, Love, but it's not malicious. As I read it, I imagined a married couple on a cruise ship: each of them reading the book that is geared towards their gender. In the end, they'll both head up to the Starlight Lounge for dinner and drinks and still be friends. It's all in good fun.
* The F@#k part of this book concerned me at first. When I think of Thailand and F@#king, I think of the out-of-control sex and slavery trade. I was completely not interested in reading about some jaunt through Bangkok's Red Light district. Thankfully, the author was equally as not interested in prostitution. So don't worry, he doesn't even go there.
So. Last year I read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and did not have the most positive reaction to it. I thought that it was pretty much a spoiled rich woman's self-indulgent soliloquies about how she flitted about the globe "finding herself" by appropriating ideas from Exotic Cultures. It was well written, though. She's a good writer.
Not long after I read that book, I heard about Drink, Play, F@#k and knew that I just HAD to read it. After a long wait, it showed up at my library and I finally got to dig into it.
It's premise is this: the author is a middle-aged man with a wife named Elizabeth. His wife suddenly has a breakdown and decides to leave him. After shacking up with some guy for a while, she leaves on a year-long whirlwind trip around the world to "find herself". The author thinks, "Well, I want to find myself too." Not interested in scrubbing ashram floors or meditating, he decides to go to Ireland to drink, Vegas to play, and Thailand to get a little action*.
Drink, Play, F@#k isn't as well written as Eat, Pray, Love, but it sure is funny. I'd recommend it to anybody who read Eat, Pray, Love and got tired of Elizabeth's navel-gazing. It pokes fun at Eat, Pray, Love, but it's not malicious. As I read it, I imagined a married couple on a cruise ship: each of them reading the book that is geared towards their gender. In the end, they'll both head up to the Starlight Lounge for dinner and drinks and still be friends. It's all in good fun.
* The F@#k part of this book concerned me at first. When I think of Thailand and F@#king, I think of the out-of-control sex and slavery trade. I was completely not interested in reading about some jaunt through Bangkok's Red Light district. Thankfully, the author was equally as not interested in prostitution. So don't worry, he doesn't even go there.
moreadsbooks's review
2.0
Once you get past the novelty of the cover, there isn't a whole lot here. A rebuttal of [b:Eat Pray Love|19501|Eat, Pray, Love|Elizabeth Gilbert|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1269870432s/19501.jpg|3352398], written as though the main character is her spurned ex-husband, not worth a lot of attention.
mholla's review
4.0
Oh man. I found this book in the laundry room (where people leave books for others) and picked it up because I found Eat Pray Love insufferable and this one could not probably be worse. It was so much better! It was funnier, better written, less self-indulgent, and SOMEHOW, more deep? The guy who goes to Ireland to drink, Vegas to gamble, and Thailand to "experience physical pleasure" was more mature before the year of adventuring, and somehow actually learned more about life than his "wife". (I also loved the allusions to Liz Gilbert being the wife who left him!)
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