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

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Discuss your expectations of the book, and how they compare to your actual experience of reading it. Were you pleasantly surprised, satisfied or disappointed? Explain.

2. How has this book informed your view of Gilbert as an author and person? Has it changed your understanding of other books she has authored? Explain.

3. Which aspects of the book were the most enjoyable or interesting to you?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Gilbert presents her addiction as an extreme manifestation of universal human needs, writing “who has not reached for substances, people, behaviors, or distractions that offer temporary respite from the built-in discomforts of existence itself?” (9). Do your experiences bear this out? 

2. Gilbert has numerous conversations with God and with the deceased Rayya throughout the book. Have you ever felt that you were able to converse with someone not physically present (or reachable by technology)? Describe this experience.

3. Gilbert begins to move toward recovery only when she reaches her lowest point, on the verge of either murder or suicide. Describe a time when a crisis forced you to undergo a personal transformation.

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Gilbert maintains that a connection to God or a higher power is essential to overcoming hardship, including addiction. Do you agree or disagree?

2. How does Gilbert portray recovery programs? How does her perspective contribute to the societal discourse around addiction and mental health?

3. Love and sex addiction is not as well known—nor as medically substantiated—as substance addictions. How does All the Way to the River portray this condition? What impact might this have on the discourse around dysfunction in romantic relationships?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. Choose one of Gilbert’s themes and reflect on its importance to her memoir. How does she develop this theme over the course of the book, and how is it meaningful?

2. Like her previous memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert’s new work straddles the line between memoir and self-help, offering advice born out of her own painful experience. Do these genres complement or undermine each other? Why?

3. How does the author’s narrative style and overlapping subject matter inform the story? Discuss.

4. Gilbert’s memoir acknowledges how she had carefully maintained a certain public and private image over many years, hiding her true feelings for Rayya and her mental health struggles. Do Gilbert’s admissions make her an unreliable narrator, or do they enrich her work with candor? Discuss.

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. Gilbert includes her own drawings and poetry in her book, inspired by her experiences. Make your own drawing or poem inspired by Gilbert’s work. It can respond to or reflect on her experiences as well as your own.

2. Imagine that Gilbert writes a follow-up to this book. What do you expect it would be about? How might she continue to develop as a person and an author?

3. If you had to design a cover for this book, what would it look like? What kind of images or symbols would you include? Why?