Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously - Books

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Nearing 30 and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, JuliePowell resolved to reclaim her life by cooking, in the span of a singleyear, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary Mastering theArt of French Cooking. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respectfor calves' livers and aspic, but a new life--lived with gusto.

Customer Reviews: Read 53 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Deliciously Funny and Inspiring July 6, 2008
This book made me laugh and has inspired me to get on my cooking and baking spree again. The story is raw and real and I like that!
If you love cooking and baking and aren't a food snob....you will love this book! Julie and Julia...Thank You!

5 out of 5 stars

Loved it, one of the better blog-born books out there June 19, 2008
Some of the negative reviews seem oddly fixated on the authors swearing (?) or having sex (?) or even that she wastes/spends too much on food. (Doesn't all gourmet cooking do that by definition?) Why blame that on her? She also lives in the most expensive city in the US - her salary makes her poor there, she isn't exaggerating at all. She is a young woman living in New York - duh. So she curses and drinks and talks about sex. Big deal.

But on to the book - This is an unadorned look at a journey in someone's life, which happens to involve cooking and the divine Julia Child hovering over it all as sort of a cooking life-coach/ fairy godmother.....it isn't a cook book per se. The focus is on a discovery of self - it's a memoir. If you are looking for the wrong thing in a book - why blame the book? Blogs are diaries - remember them, those unvarnished outpourings of life's melodramatic struggle? That is what this is, albeit a bit more polished. I though it was intriguing and read it all in a short time - I wanted to see how she did. Maybe one needs to be at the age of self discovery or open to changes in lifes plan to see the merit.

I loved it, you may not, But it is an interesting journey to read, very uplifting and real. Her writing brings you into the story, you feel a real kinship...And there's butter...lots and lots of butter.

*By the way, she isn't mean to 9/11 survivors families as claimed by one review. The woman is not Ann Coulter, just someone who had a rather thankless job wherein she had to field a lot of PR complaints over things she had no control over. The rebuilding effort of the towers site is a political football in reality. Lighten up, people. You are seeing things that aren't there. And the reason that she is upset about her biological clock is that she was diagnosed with a chronic health problem, PCOS, which she will have to deal with for the rest of her life, making her very prone to infertility and certain cancers. There is no cure, no effective treatments - look it up those of you who accuse her of whining. It's no picnic.

1 out of 5 stars

Mom always said "her initials ain't JC for nothing!" June 6, 2008
...and if that's the case, Julie Powell may well be the antichrist. Wanted to love this book, tried to like it - but I just couldn't stomach it past the first couple of chapters. Too much vulgarity. Too much distastefully embarrassing personal revelation. I guess this is the 21st century "My Space" version of Julia's classic "The French Chef." Oh Well.

5 out of 5 stars

For those who hate their jobs, and love to cook March 10, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I first read this book as it's hardback version. When it came out in the newly titled paperback, I couldn't resist rereading it. I should also mention I've given this book to several friends and relatives who have all enjoyed it as well.

The premise of this book is quite interesting - a woman who is looking for direction in her life stumbles across her mother's old, hardback copy of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", and has an epiphany. She decides, that in one year, she will cook all 524 recipes in the book, and write about her experiences in a blog - still a relatively new "art" form at that time.

The resulting blog, and book, are filled with lustily-written passages describing cooking; her rather surreal job at an unnamed government job; (Something to do with designing a new memorial building at the Twin Towers Site post 9/11); her interesting, bohemian friends and their escapades; and her marriage. Her writing is full of angst, passion, and verve. All-in-all, a highly entertaining read.

The recipes, as such, are limited. This is not a cookbook. This is a memoir of cooking. This is a memoir of life. This is a memoir of joie-de-vivre. This is a book that has more to do with discovering that while you can hate your job, your coworkers and where your life is going, you can love to cook, love your husband, love your friends, and that, in the end, is what matters.

Enjoy the read, enjoy the ride!

4 out of 5 stars

delightful -- hard to put down March 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I don't usually go back and review products after I've bought them, but this book was such an enjoyable read that I found it hard to put down. Laugh-out-loud funny at times, poignant at others, it provides an all-too-rare look at the ups and downs of married love, which I found refreshing in an age when most books and movies center on singles finding each other or on marriages falling apart.

Julie, if you happen to read these reviews, I really hope your dream of becomeing a mother comes true. Raising three daughters has enriched my life more than words can say, and if ever there were two people who deserved to be parents, it's you and Eric.

Best wishes,
Julie Richer

Good Grape Wine Company