Megham Daum wanted to avoid writing about Eat Pray Love but couldn’t hold back comment on the ostensible spiritual project that has become a major marketing brand of its own: “Now that its journey through the zeitgeist has exceeded any of the peregrinations depicted in the book itself, and now that its author is an icon and her musings are a brand, the real epiphany is less about New Age pabulum than old-school capitalism—and, specifically, about how brilliantly the two work together. It’s a bit queasy-making, sure. But it’s also kind of like smiling in your liver. If you can manage that, maybe you deserve your own line of incense burners.”