Book 1, Beads 1-18 Summary and Analysis

Book 1, "Italy, or 'Say It Like your Eat It,' or '36 Tales about the Pursuit of Pleasure,'" opens with Elizabeth Gilbert in Rome, wishing that Giovanni would kiss her, but also dreading it. They meet regularly to practice each other's language. In her mid-thirties, emotionally brittle following a terrible divorce and a failed affair, Liz has sworn herself to temporary celibacy, to find healing and peace through solitude. She goes up to her studio apartment alone, offering a prayer of thanks at not being tempted.

Liz's story begins on her knees in her bathroom three years earlier, sobbing about her six-year marriage and the looming duty of motherhood. Liz refuses to share with the reader the joys and sorrows of the failing marriage or how it had come about, concentrating instead on the novel experience...