Julie & Julia
Ratings30
Average rating3.2
Julie Powell is 30 years old, living in a rundown apartment in Queens and working at a secretarial job that's going nowhere. She needs something to break the monotony of her life, and she invents a deranged assignment. She will cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In the span of one year. At first she thinks it will be easy, but as she moves from simple potato soup into more complicated realms, she realizes there's more to Mastering the Art than meets the eye. She haunts the local butcher, buying kidneys and sweetbreads. She rarely serves dinner before midnight. She discovers how to mold the perfect Orange Bavarian, the trick to extracting marrow from bone, and the intense pleasure of eating liver. And somewhere along the line she realizes she has eclipsed her life's ordinariness through humor, hysteria, and perseverance.--From publisher description.
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Moderately amusing fluff, easy enough to read but not that substantial. A little scattered in places, which is fine when the digressions are interesting or funny, but I don't know that I care that much about all Julie's friends and their various romantic entanglements, you know? Particularly since I couldn't really keep her friends separate in my head. At its best when writing about the food, unsurprisingly, and really gets into the visceral and messy parts of cooking.
Update after watching the movie per the Bookriot challenge - movie was better, though oddly Julie comes off worse in the movie? The book doesn't have much of a narrative arc, so the movie tried to create one by adding in some marital drama (arising out of a truly juvenile tantrum by Julie). The best parts of the movie were pretty much all Julia and Paul Child's life in France and Julia learning to cook. Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci are so wonderful and this made me want an entire movie starring them, instead of half of one.
(Bookriot Read Harder 2016 Challenge: #18 Read a book that was adapted into a movie, then watch the movie. Debate which is better.)
Deep sigh. I loved the movie, and loved [b:My Life in France 5084 My Life in France Julia Child http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165517460s/5084.jpg 1602216]... but I felt saddened by Julie & Julia. All I sensed was desperation, frustration at a life that doesn't have to be that way. Powell is searching, sometimes angrily and even nastily, and I wonder how her life has been after the end of her Project (the year of Julia Child). There seems to be some bitterness in Ms Powell, and it comes out too much in her book. I feel sorry for her, and sorry to have read her book: it's TMI, more than I needed to know.If you enjoyed the film, please consider relishing those memories: skip the book.
