Eating & Praying by Davis Summers – You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be

Tyler Morgan should have seen his break up coming. Following a two year spiral leading him straight into the open arms of an unsustainable lifestyle, anyone on the outside looking in would not have been surprised by the news. Leo had had enough. Forced to emerge from the refuge of their shared apartment, the image of a dear memory shared between him and his mother, now interpreted as a sign from the divine, inspires Tyler to pursue the same modern pilgrimage made by thousands before him, with the promise of discovering one’s authentic self along the way: Eating his way through Italy, finding stillness through prayer and meditation in the solace of an Indian Ashram, before bumping into the love of his life on the tropical island of Bali. But Tyler Morgan is no Elizabeth Gilbert. And as such, his travels don’t run quite as smoothly as he imagined…

Spoiler-Free Plot

Leo and Tyler were meant to go the distance. Future plans concocted during their four years together all vanished like a vapor in the wind after their Tuesday breakup. As he clears up his belongings, forced to move out of the expensive apartment his now ex-boyfriend Leo’s finances had afforded them, a picture of Tyler’s nineteen year old self captured at a film festival he attended with his mother awoke the impulse to recreate the actions of the film they had once wished to watch together. One call to his assistant Ashley was all it took to set his travel plans in motion.

One month in Italy, one month in India, and a month spent in Bali to cap it off. As predicted, Tyler’s waistband did indeed expand as he ate his way through the restaurants of Rome over the course of a fortnight. A trip intended to be spent alone, somewhat focused on committing to some light introspection in preparation for the next leg of his trip is overridden by the allure of several charming characters who bring lessons of their own into Tyler’s life.

A lack of foresight on Tyler’s part, and a shocking miscalculation threatens to derail the entire experience. Ultimately, it is proven that detours do not always spell ruin; sometimes they lead you exactly where you’re supposed to be.

My Take on Eating & Praying

Fifteen year-old me absolutely devoured Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love as it was passed around the girls in my year group. From the temporary possession of one, checked-in then immediately checked-out by the next person in line. It took hardly any persuading to convince my boarding school friends to watch the Julia Roberts film adaptation on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I think lovers of the book and/or the film always remember the circumstances surrounding their first interaction with the story, and the impact it had on their lives (assuming that it did), just as our protagonist Tyler Morgan does.

Some of the rumors surrounding Elizabeth Gilbert’s iconic story have somewhat sullied its intrigue, which is why I love the many interpretations that have sprouted from the original. I adore the fact that people have taken its framework and made it into something of their own, using all sorts of different media: vlogs, blog posts, newsletters, and now fiction. The additional twist of Tyler never having seen or read Eat, Pray, Love by himself nor with his mother, only for him to share the first watch with his estranged father as they work on mending their broken relationship will bring tears to the eyes of readers as it did mine.

Davis Summers has somehow managed to fit so much intimacy into a book of fewer than 200 pages. The romances, or dalliances, are short yet they feel so full and profound in the way that they are written. They don’t skip from one dramatic scene to the next, but rather project small glimpses of domestic bliss, or they perfectly evoke the feverish throes of—what was intended to be— an inconsequential holiday fling. The ruling theme of this story is relationships; how they’re formed, lost, grieved, rediscovered and neglected, with each one executed with realistic outcomes that subject all characters to the nuances of life. None of them are perfect, the protagonist certainly isn’t, but their missteps lead to a believable amount of growth over the timeframe of events in the story.

I’d like to focus on the implicit details that signify a genuine transformation in Tyler’s outlook on life. In the beginning, the excessive name dropping, consumerist tone of Tyler’s inner thoughts definitively brand him as existing within a social strata that would be quite foreign to “the average person”. He belonged to a group of people who are presented to us as being aloof, abrasive, selfish and entirely devoid of any kind of self-awareness. As the story progresses, when faced with a mirror reflecting his past self in the form of Blair, the jarring reflection serves as the first trigger of Tyler’s unraveling. The grounding presence of his fellow Missourians, facing the fact that he is disliked by not one but two people he had hoped to kindle book-inspired romances with, being taken down several rungs on the social ladder and booted out of the industry he’d stumbled upwards into. After each misfortune, he sheds his bad habits layer by layer. Almost as if the dirtier and more unkempt his outward appearance became, the less he agonized over the paltry details of his life. No more name dropping, the pressing need to compete dissipates, New York loses its status as the center of his universe. He loses the things that once defined him: his job, boyfriend and lifestyle, but enters a new era of his life with a healthy perspective. Tyler’s story proves that deep introspection can be attained anywhere, by anyone and at any time, priced at free ninety-nine, not the thousands of dollars he forked over. When Tyler got what he wanted, a trail of negativity was left in his wake. When he got what he needed, positivity and love blossomed.

Age Rating

16 years and above

Content Warning

Alcoholism, Bigotry, Death, Drug Use, LGBTQ+, Mentions of Religion, Sexual Content

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