Since Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love was my favorite book last year, I was happy to find this by her in the audio book store, but found it was not ideal to listen to short stories, especially while driving around town, when listening happens in short spurts. It is a little difficult to bounce around the different settings and characters. In general, I liked her short vignette's of life, though I didn't always get how each story was about "pilgrims," though I quickly learned to think of "pilgrims" as a broader concept. Lots of strong women - the woman ranch hand from Pennsylvania, the woman bar owner, who's business is ruined by a strip joint across the street. I think my favorite was The Finest Wife, where a woman meets all her old lovers again at the end of her life. I was a bit surprised by the Western slant in stories that started feeling like Annie Proulx's Wyoming Stories, but not as desperate. "Elk Talk" was about Easterners moving out West and trying to call elk. I did like Gilbert's realistic and female centric approach to sex in a few of her stories. Some stories I didn't care for. I'll try to remember to leave short stories for reading in print.
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