Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

 

Julie & Julia

by Julie Powell

Julie & Julia tells Julie Powell's year long adventure story cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It follows the ups and (mostly) downs of this venture while Powell tells her blog readers about her experience.

Powell is a secretary adrift in her 29th year, feeling that she has not really done anything to show for her life, other than marrying a man who supports her no matter what she does. The blog and cooking project is, for Powell, a way to revitalize her life.

The prose is very funny, with Powell refusing to sugar coat the fact that she is self-absorbed, selfish at times, and prone to crying fits on the kitchen floor. She never glosses over her failures or her shortcuts, and takes us through the ways she navigates relationships with her husband, mother, and friends along the journey. It's not pretty!

This was a fun companion piece to the film, though written before, obviously. It is different than the film, which I liked. Julia Child herself plays such a small role in the book. The sections about Paul and Julia Child mostly focus on their lives before they lived in French, which is different than the film. I was surprised at the differences, to be honest, but also delighted by them. It was nice to have a completely different experience between the two. The fact that she focused so much on the lives and love affairs of her friends was surprising.

Ultimately, it is a feel-good book with an uplifting ending that I was happy to have read and enjoyed. I give Julie & Julia 4 stars.