All the Way to the River
Love, Loss and Liberation
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £13.99
Publisher Description
A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF AUTUMN 2025
AN OPRAH WINFREY BOOK CLUB PICK
'No one who reads this book will ever forget it' Meg Mason
'An absolute masterclass and truth-bomb … I think many people will be shaken awake by this book' Emma Gannon
In her first non-fiction book in a decade, the no. 1 bestselling writer who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break free.
In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: the two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe.
What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?
All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love – or to any other passion, substance or craving – and who yearns, at long last, for liberation.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Elizabeth Gilbert’s first memoir in a decade isn’t an easy read. The story of her complicated relationship with Rayya Elias, her long-time best friend-turned romantic partner, it is raw and at times harrowing, but also beautiful and brave. Gilbert, whose first massive hit Eat Pray Love was released almost 20 years ago, realised she was in love with Elias, a filmmaker and musician originally from Syria, when Elias was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer. She ended her marriage so they could be together, but as Elias’s illness took over, the addictions they’d both fought to overcome—Elias’s to drugs, Gilbert’s to love, sex and codependency—re-emerged. Gilbert is unsparingly honest about the terrifying chaos of their destructive behaviour, but at the book’s core is a tremendous sense of the love the pair shared. From her devastation, she manages to find healing, wisdom and, ultimately, hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Gilbert (City of Girls) discusses in this inspiring account how she struggled through financial hazards, obsessive love affairs, and emotional land mines on her way to "a healthy relationship with myself" after a tumultuous romance. Gilbert first met Rayya Elias in 2000, when Elias began cutting Gilbert's hair just before the author grew disenchanted with her first marriage. The pair gradually evolved from casual friends to soulmates, with Gilbert ending her second marriage to start a relationship with Elias in the 2010s after Elias received a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. After the couple consummated their attraction, both fell deeper into addiction—Gilbert to love and sex, Elias to alcohol and drugs. After Elias died in 2018, Gilbert examined her addictions and arrived at a spiritual awakening ("I gave my life to God then, the way I used to give it to strangers"). Gilbert achieves her signature intimacy through a bluntly confessional tone ("Sex has always been the fastest and most direct way for me to feel thoroughly chosen") and an admirable ability to stare darkness in the face without losing hope. Readers struggling with addiction or seeking a path through heartbreak will find invaluable wisdom in these pages.
Customer Reviews
Brutiful
Despite critics going after Liz, this book feels raw and honest. Not performative. Cleanses the spirit in a way that is hard to deal with in one sitting. Highly recommended to all who are ready for a solid dash of introspection and honesty.