'Eat, Pray, Love' author halts publication of book set in Russia following backlash - After Ukrainian readers expressed anger and disappointment over the book's setting, Elizabeth Gilbert said “it is not the time” for “The Snow Forest” to be published.

The bestselling author of “Eat, Pray, Love” is indefinitely delaying the publication of her new book set in the Russian province of Siberia following backlash from Ukrainian readers, she announced on social media Monday morning.

Elizabeth Gilbert said she is halting publication of her novel, "The Snow Forest," originally slated to publish in February 2024, after receiving "an enormous, massive outpouring of reactions and responses from my Ukrainian readers expressing anger, sorrow, disappointment, and pain about the fact that I would choose to release a book into the world right now — any book, no matter what the subject of it is — that is set in Russia."

"I want to say that I have heard these messages, have read these messages and I respect them. And as a result I'm making a course correction and removing the book from its publication schedule," she continued.

"It is not the time for this book to be published. And I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced, and are continuing to experience, grievous and extreme harm," Gilbert added.

Gilbert described the novel as “set in the middle of Siberia in the middle of the last century and told the story of a group of individuals who made a decision to remove themselves from the society to resist the Soviet government and to try to defend nature against industrialization.”

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Though Gilbert's announcement doesn't mention them specifically, more than 500 reviewers appear to have given the book one-star ratings on the book reviewing website Goodreads in recent days, with several accusing Gilbert of "romanticizing " Russia while living at a safe distance from the country's devastating war with Ukraine.

Maybe I should lay off /r/writing posters for a bit, published authors regularly beat them in cringe.