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All the Way to the River

Love, Loss and Liberation

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About this listen

 Bloomsbury presents All the Way to the River, written and read by Elizabeth Gilbert.

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.©2025 Elizabeth Gilbert (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Best of 2025 Editors Select Grief & Loss Personal Development Women Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

Editorial Review

Addiction, loss, and healing
Elizabeth Gilbert first inspired us to journey toward ourselves in Eat, Pray, Love. In her latest memoir, she takes us down a rockier path toward self-actualization as she contends with the loss of her life partner, Rayya, and their individual struggles with addiction. Gilbert invites us along as she confronts and overcomes the rawest edges of herself: codependency, denial, people pleasing, and the unique pain of building a healthier relationship to love and sex after unimaginable heartbreak. All The Way to the River is a testament to the power of faith, connection, and determination, urging each of us to envision (through tear-soaked eyes) a better future for ourselves no matter the current circumstances. —Rachael X., Audible Editor

Critic reviews

Heart-breaking, sometimes harrowing, but with profound honesty, Elizabeth Gilbert asks us to hope. No one who reads this book will ever forget it (Meg Mason)
An absolute masterclass and truth-bomb of a memoir, packed with rawness, courage and poetry. I feel changed by it. The deepest truest manifesto I’ve ever read on recovery, addiction, facing yourself and what it means to belong. I think many people will be shaken awake by this book (Emma Gannon)
All stars
Most relevant
I didn’t expect much from this book—I thought I’d already heard Raya’s story through Liz’s interviews. But Liz went further, speaking with piercing honesty about what dying actually looks like. Having lost many people in my life, I know the weight of grief, but not the daily reality of living alongside someone who is dying (or as Liz insists—someone who is still living).

What struck me most is how movies often soften this experience, showing it as gentle, wrapped in love and ease. In truth, it is far heavier: a double dose of fear—your own and theirs—and we are not made to carry both.

For me, this book was a mirror. I recommend it to anyone who has lost someone, because within its pages you’ll find permission to shed the tears you once locked away in silence and shame.

The Truth, the painful, hard truth.

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The brave and raw authenticity of this part of Liz’s life story breathes hope into any of us who have spent our lives in the pursuit of love and approval. I am moved and inspired me beyond words.

Beautifully heartbreaking and enlightening in one go.

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An amazing book read brilliantly by the author. I loved hearing Rayya’s music and vocals as well.

Incredible book

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This latest from Liz Gilbert is her best yet - I couldn’t stop listening. She tells her love story in the most honest way, not flinching from the horrors of both her and her partner’s behaviours. She lays out what love addiction and codependency really looks and feels like at its worst. Utterly compelling and I have started re-reading already!

Beautiful, devastating, raw

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This book is one of the best books I have ever listened to.
The storytelling is sublime, the narration so full of love and the message is life changing.

At one point in the book, Raya tells Elizabeth Gilbert, the author that she can see her telling their memoir to someone.

Elizabeth asks Raya, ‘Who do you see me telling the story to?’
Raya replies, ‘Someone lucky’

That someone lucky was me and anyone else who listens to this book and as a result sees their own addictions with a torch light that wasn’t available before. This book will save lives of that I’m sure.

Thank you Liz and Raya, for the hand hold and for taking me all the way to the river with you.

Profound, heart opening, spiritual awakening book.

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