The Abstinence Teacher, and Eat, Pray, Love

Hi everyone, Shylah here. We've been in hiding for a bit while we completely overhaul our lives in the best way possible. You can read more about that at husbands site. We plan to mostly be in hiding for some time, and some of the ways we used to do things are probably gone for good. But one thing hasn't changed, and that's my passion for books.

So I still finished our last book club selection, The Abstinence Teacher, and I did want to take a moment for discussion. I'd like to read your comments on the book below. Comment away. I don't have a lot to say because for me, well, the story lines seemed quite familiar to me. For a good 10 years of my life I was surrounded and enveloped in a very evangelical, christian lifestyle. A lot of that time was spent questioning those ideas, and now I find myself "free" from that and able to appreciate all spirituality. So I have seen both sides of this book played out in a lot of scenarios. Nothing came off as a surprise, nothing seemed shocking, nothing really grabbed me at all. And the ending was a bust. It seemed for me as though the author forgot some pages or got bored and never came up with a good ending.

On the other hand, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert completely took me by surprise. I purchased this book in NYC last July ( at the Strand!). I have picked up and put it down 20 times. There were many moments in the beginning of the book that I wasn't feeling that "tug", you know, the special book tug, that every time you even think of putting it down you read 20 more pages because it's that good. Well, half way through, I felt it. There is much more depth to the author's journey than you would notice at first glance. When I pick up a good book, I am expecting it to speak to me in some manner. This book did. In many ways it has challenged me to let go of things, forgive myself for things I didn't realize were still popping up, and also to take time to meditate and care for the spiritual part that I've been pushing down the last couple of years due to a big heaping serving of what I like to call "Spiritual Shell Shock". I highly recommend it ( the book, not the shell shock).  I don't want to say too much else about it.

I haven't decided what the next book club selection is. It's a tie between The Windup Girl, and Eating the Dinosaur. I'll take your vote, and we can have an online discussion about it if there are any interested parties.

I do miss everyone and I hope we will resurface some time before summer. Just know we are well. We are taking a sort-of 'time out' for 2010. Yes, we'll be around occasionally but we are mostly completely unplugging, getting plenty of sleep, keeping our bodies completely pure by embracing our vegan diet like never before, and trying to be good stewards of all of the gifts we are given every day- good health, good jobs, love, family, and the peace of our home.

My love goes out to all of you. I hope to hear from all my dear reader friends soon.

Peace-

Shylah

p.s.  please add http://tooshyart.blogspot.com/ to your rss feed to be updated on forthcoming art projects.