Committed

A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

By: Elizabeth Gilbert

Narrated by: Elizabeth Gilbert

Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

At the end of her best-selling 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 providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which - after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing - gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving into this topic completely, trying with all her might to discover through historical research, interviews, and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is.

Told with Gilbert's trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committed attempts to "turn on all the lights" when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks, and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert's memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.

©2010 Elizabeth Gilbert (P)2010 Penguin

Love listening to her!

I could listen to Elizabeth Gilbert talk forever. It doesn't even matter the subject--although this is one that is near and dear to me right now...

No eat pray love

Its no eat pray love but what it is in its own right is something equally edifying. Its the journey a woman takes to find commitment in a world where there are no role models for the role she identifies with. It teaches you to be your won damn pioneer!

not bad, not fantastic

not as good as the first, but overall not bad. I don't really like how she takes God completely out of marriage considering her personal journey in 1st memoir. other than that is was very insightful.

A Different Perspective on Marriage

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As always, I enjoyed listening to the author do her own narration. This book explore marriage down so many paths. It discusses the State institution compared to the daring drove between 2 people to love and join together in union. It was a beautiful journey and a wonderful new perspective on matrimony! If you have every felt skeptical about it, like I have, this is a great book to dive into!

This is a man saying this book is great

As a born-again Christian, I wasn't sure what to expect or think about a secular both like this. I am so glad I read it (well, listened to it).

The author's delivery and performance was awesome. More important was her message: what she shared. Some things don't agree with my worldview, yet, over all I was granted this wonderful look and understanding into the world of a woman's mind, and how least one woman, and through case studies other women, think about marriage. It was really delightful, inspiring, and I loved it: I couldn't stop listening.

As a guy in his 40s who's never been married, the biggest benefit I got from this book is it really made love and relationships so much more accessible to me and made me really fall in love with both.

Committed

I'm so glad when Marriage was the only way to stay together, they truely understood how much they loved each other. I on the other hand wasn't so lucky...We all should eventually decide. But, I loved all the different cultural ideas of marriage and statistics that the book brings up.

Disappointing

I was disappointed in this book because it did not have the appeal or the flow of Eat, Pray, Love.
I did not find the details of what commitment is, and what love means to her presented in a way that held my attention. I think it would have benefitted from a good editor with a sharp red pen.

Very entertaining and a great performance.

A Beautifully written book and well read by the author. I throughly enjoyed the experience.

Not Eat, Love, Pray

This felt more like a history textbook than a personal story. I kept finding myself drifting. She digressed and frequently explored tangents that while they were not totally unrelated, did not keep my attention. She did a great job narrating but its not the sequel I was expecting.

A deep and fascinating exploration into and examination of the too often unexamined institution of marriage

I quite simply loved this book! And More importantly, I needed this book, right now, at this time in my life. Having just crossed the 15 year mark in my own marriage I have as of late been feeling a strong and unnerving undercurrent of restlessness. I had never aspired to get married and had been, for most of my life, beyond ambivalent about it and am still not entirely sold on the idea. I married late thinking that I was ready to settle into a comfortable committed union with one person. But just as I had feared, the constraints and limitations of trying to remain the person that my husband married
In order to keep our relationship intact have me questioning why and feeling like I am slowly withering under the weight of this stifling arrangement. Ms. Gilberts exploration of her own ambivalence about marriage has also been mine. This book is a very brave, unflinching, thought and soul provoking examination of our deepest subconscious longings and motivations around a mostly unexamined subject. And I love her Narration, her voice is soothing and full of humor it would not have had the same impact on me Had it been narrated by anyone else.