All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation

All the Way to the River: Love, Loss and Liberation has proved a divisive work amongst critics and everyday readers. 

In the headline of Dina Nayeri’s review in The Guardian, she calls All the Way to the River “excruciating to read” and complains that Gilbert tries unsuccessfully to recapture the engaging narrative of Eat Pray Love by focusing yet again on problems in her love life. Nayeri writes, “Gilbert keeps straining for that rhyme, trying to recapture an earlier magic: this can’t just be a book about Rayya’s drug relapse in her final year, or a meditation on end-of-life choices. It has to be about how Liz ended up on the bathroom floor again (remember that scene?) and divorced another guy (remember that?) because she’s a love addict who craves love and passion more than the rest of us” (Nayeri, Dani. “All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert Review – Excruciating to Read.” The Guardian, 11 Sept. 2025). Nevertheless, Nayeri acknowledges that Gilbert can write “transportingly,” singling out Gilbert’s descriptions of Rayya’s final days as “funny, propulsive, raw and moving” (Nayeri). The New York Times’ review of this work agrees that Gilbert describes her experience with “saccharine self-indulgence,” calling the book an “excruciating missed opportunity” (Egan, Elisabeth. “Elizabeth Gilbert’s New Memoir Is an Excruciating Missed Opportunity.” The New York Times, 8 Sept. 2025). 

Other critics appreciate Gilbert’s candor and admire her for including even the most unflattering and disturbing aspects of her experience. Kirkus Reviews calls the book, “A worthy addition to the literature of addiction and recovery, charming and harrowing by turns” while The Boston Globe also offers a largely positive review which praises Gilbert’s engaging narrative (“All the Way to the River.” Kirkus Reviews, 29 May 2025). Writing in The Washington Post, critic Meredith Maran notes that Gilbert “follows the advice of her feminist foremothers. She tells the truth about her wildly privileged, scrupulously examined life. In doing so, from her vaunted position, she furthers the enduring women’s crusade to split the world open” (Maran, Meredith. “Elizabeth Gilbert’s Mew Memoir Might Shock the Eat, Pray, Love Crowd.” The Washington Post, 2025). All the Way to the River earned another valuable endorsement in September 2025 when it was selected by media titan Oprah Winfrey as the latest addition to her popular book club. In her review of the book, Winfrey calls it “a journey of forgiveness and healing that could only be written by a writer as exceptional as this one” (“All the Way to the River.” Oprah).