2013 Book Review #43: Julie & Julia

[jethrien]

Title: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
Author: Julie Powell
Genre: Memoir
Thingummies: 4

Synopsis: New Yorker tries to recreate every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol I in a year.

Thoughts: Bits of interviews of Powell and the knowledge that her next book involves abandoning her husband to take up with a random butcher confirms what you get the hint of in this book: the author is kind of self-absorbed and probably not that great a person to hang out with.

That said, she's quite the entertaining writer. And she's got enough self-deprecation that you don't want to smack her, despite her self-absorption.

She starts the book with not a lot going for her, and she admits this--she's a crap actress who really is just a temp with a quarter-life crisis and a tiny, horrific apartment. She starts trying out recipes, in order, and blogging as kind of a self-improvement project, for lack of a better idea. It gets a little out of hand.

But I can appreciate her sense of humor. Even more so, I can appreciate her ability to become obsessed with completing a goal, even when it's self-assigned, not particularly critical, and increasingly detrimental to her sanity. It's the kind of ridiculousness I'd pull myself, I'm afraid. So I can sympathize with the urge to continue on in the face of despair and increasing fights with loved ones.

Where she has more gumption than me is that I think I might have caved in the face of aspics.

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Not to spoiler her next book, but it is actually a lot more complex than it sounds, and it comes out better than you might think. I have it if you want to borrow it.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it is. I still think, from the way she writes about her interactions with people, that she is someone whose writing I enjoy but whose actual presence I would not.