Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
by Julie Powell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Julie PowellEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-07-01
ISBN: 031604251X
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
Book Review: The book is not the movie - get over it
Summary: 5 Stars
So I am really dismayed to see how many people watched the movie, and then read the book and gave it a bad review. Seriously? Did these people wake up yesterday and have no way of realizing that movies made from books are rarely exact matches and, in fact, each really needs to be taken as a separate thing? Did they think they had woken up in alternate book-and-movie-twin universe? Did they possibly not realize, despite the fact that the movie is about writing it, that there is an entire huge available BLOG they could have spent seconds going to and previewing Julie Powell's writing style before buying the book and whining about how it's not like the movie in utterly useless Amazon reviews? No? Really? REALLY?
Diatribe aside, I have not seen the movie, and did not intend to see the movie until I'd read the book and put it aside for at least a good three or four months. So now that I've read the book, I'll probably catch the movie on cable sometime next year. Because I don't want the experience of reading the book to taint my enjoyment of the movie (HINT!), and because honestly something about Meryl's Streep's performance in the previews annoys me. Personally, I found the book completely charming. Julie sounds very much like someone who I could be friends with. And I appreciate that even though she decided to step onto a world stage (the internet is a world stage, even if no one is looking in your direction), she did it as herself. Sometimes strong, sometimes full of self-pity, sometimes over expletive-laden in her choice of expression, sometimes stupid in her choice of footwear, always very real and often charmingly witty, she is always herself.
This book is written by a real person, about her real life. It is amusing, and painful, and has some honest introspective discussion that certainly makes ME think about some of the food choices I make. And some of the life choices I make. It has also done a great job of rousing my interest in French cooking. Do I want to do what she sets out to do? Hell no? Do I want to make that one recipe with the breadcrumb encrusted liver? Awfully much. This book is NOT the cute PG-13 version of Julie, interwoven with Julia Child's own story. This book is the R-rated, sometimes even X-rated real life version of Julie, the real Julie, with a teeny bit of Julia Child for purposes of clarifying references. Let me say it again, this book is JULIE'S story as told by JULIE. If you want a cutsy Amy Adams version of Julie, watch the movie again. If you want to know more about Julia Childs, read a book about Julia Childs. If you are interested in what really happened to Julie in this year that she took on this amazing challenge, well, this would be a place to start. Did she sound whiny? Sometimes yes. But I think anyone who's ever worked a fulltime job and taken on a big project at home at the same time can kind of sympathize with that. I know I can.
On a side note, I read that Julia Child said that if Julie had trouble with the recipes, Julie must not be much of a cook. It kind of makes me wonder what universe Julia Child lives in, because just about any professional chef will tell you that classical French cooking, the kind Julia Child is all about, is one of the more difficult cuisines to master. And saying that about someone who basically revived her pretty mediocre cookbook after years of obscurity, makes Julia Child sound like kind of a self-involved bitch. Which from what I've read, she apparently was, at least in her later life.
Summary of Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously
Julie & Julia, the bestselling memoir that's "irresistible....A kind of Bridget Jones meets The French Chef" (Philadelphia Inquirer), is now a major motion picture. Julie Powell, nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, resolves to reclaim her life by cooking in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves' livers and aspic, but a new life-lived with gusto. The film is written and directed by Nora Ephron and stars Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl Streep as Julia.Julie & Julia is the story of Julie Powell's attempt to revitalize her marriage, restore her ambition, and save her soul by cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, in a period of 365 days. The result is a masterful medley of Bridget Jones' Diary meets Like Water for Chocolate, mixed with a healthy dose of original wit, warmth, and inspiration that sets this memoir apart from most tales of personal redemption.
When we first meet Julie, she's a frustrated temp-to-perm secretary who slaves away at a thankless job, only to return to an equally demoralizing apartment in the outer boroughs of Manhattan each evening. At the urging of Eric, her devoted and slightly geeky husband, she decides to start a blog that will chronicle what she dubs the "Julie/Julia Project." What follows is a year of butter-drenched meals that will both necessitate the wearing of an unbearably uncomfortable girdle on the hottest night of the year, as well as the realization that life is what you make of it and joy is not as impossible a quest as it may seem, even when it's -10 degrees out and your pipes are frozen.
Powell is a natural when it comes to connecting with her readers, which is probably why her blog generated so much buzz, both from readers and media alike. And while her self-deprecating sense of humor can sometimes dissolve into whininess, she never really loses her edge, or her sense of purpose. Even on day 365, she's working her way through Mayonnaise Collee and ending the evening "back exactly where we started--just Eric and me, three cats and Buffy...sitting on a couch in the outer boroughs, eating, with Julia chortling alongside us...."
Inspired and encouraging, Julie and Julia is a unique opportunity to join one woman's attempt to change her life, and have a laugh, or ten, along the way. --Gisele Toueg
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