So I listened to Eat, Pray, Love. It wasn't as bad as I first feared. But I don't think I'd recommend it. She spent the first part of the book not describing her time in Italy (and the food!), but mostly talking about the drama that lead her on this trip. I'm sorry, I get it. I don't need to hear all your freaking issues. We all have them. Some of us might have the same issues. But I bet that a significant portion of the population understands what it's like to be at the lowest of your low points, emotionally-speaking (I certainly do). So tell us more about your freaking time in Italy, not your sob story. The second part was alright. Still too many forays in my opinion to her past life, especially in the first half of the second part, but this was far and away the most interesting part for me. Then the third part felt like half spiritual lecture and have "blah blah blah I said I'd write this in 3 parts so here I am doing so but really after the first bit of it, I'm just going to rinse, repeat." However, I say all of the above but I should caveat that the "self-help" and "woe is me" type books really piss me off in general, so the above is sort of generous for Eat, Pray, Love.
I've now started listening to
Shadow Divers, a book about a discovery made by some shipwreck divers. I'm only about 2 hours into it, and it's good so far, but I'm looking forward to getting to the meat of the story. The author spent about half the time so far describing diving and all the perils associated with it. To people with no experience around boats and/or no experience diving, this probably helps set the scene. For me, who loves the water, loves boats, and SCUBA dives, it doesn't add a lot. Some of the reviews on Amazon disparage that this is a "highly embellished" tale, but I'm pretty indifferent to that. I want a good story, and so far, this seems like it will be one.
I'm also still finishing Hobb's Assassin's Quest. I've got 15% left according to my Kindle. I'm looking forward to finishing it (the story is good so far). Up next will be Mockingjay, the third in The Hunger Games trilogy. I read the first two books in a day each, so I expect that the third will also be a quick read.
/tk