Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

Julie Powell

3.70 · Rating details · 142,316 ratings · 7,715 reviews

Now in paperback-the format in which it's destined to become a reading group favorite-the most heralded and hilarious memoir of recent years:

Nearing 30 and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, Julie Powell reclaims her life by cooking every single recipe in Julia Child's legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking in the span of one year. It's a hysterical, inconceiva ...more

Get A Copy

Or buy for

Paperback, 307 pages

Published September 7th 2006 by Back Bay Books (first published September 1st 2005)

More Details... edit details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Julie and Julia, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about Julie and Julia

Lists with This Book

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Writing About Food

52 books — 36 voters

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Books Made into Movies or TV Shows

180 books — 15 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

3.70 ·

Rating details

· 142,316 ratings · 7,715 reviews

Filter

Sort order

Jun 21, 2007 devra rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: foodlit

it seemed so simple, and so brilliant and so the perfect type of book for me, i remember thinking as i perused--i forget what, probably the new york times--and saw a reference to julie powell's julie and julia project.

a woman who dedicated her year to learning how to cook.
like me. i hoped for inspiration--for my writing, for my cooking, for ideas that i could incorporate into both.

i immediately ordered a copy. or maybe i went straight to borders after work. i started reading the night i got it. ...more

flag 194 likes · Like · see review

Aug 30, 2009 Petra Eggs rated it liked it

Shelves: biography-true-story, cookery-food-diet, 2015-reviews, reviewed, 2016-150-reviews

I can see how this book was a successful blog. It's more a series of snacks than a grand a la carte meal in a French restaurant. The author's endless repetition of her hatred for Republicans, her job as a secretary and the use of her favourite words fuck and suck, neither of them used sexually, probably give you the flavour of this slight one-note book. A snarky, sarky, endlessly-whining personality that is amusing to read on a daily blog, gets a bit much in a full-length book. Reading it is a b I can see how this book was a successful blog. It's more a series of snacks than a grand a la carte meal in a French restaurant. The author's endless repetition of her hatred for Republicans, her job as a secretary and the use of her favourite words fuck and suck, neither of them used sexually, probably give you the flavour of this slight one-note book. A snarky, sarky, endlessly-whining personality that is amusing to read on a daily blog, gets a bit much in a full-length book. Reading it is a bit like having to eat all your meals at McDonalds every day from Sunday for a week. By Wednesday, you'd long for a salad and maybe a refreshing sorbet, but it would yet another ersatz burger with underdone and slightly wilted fries.

Julia Child is, for non-Americans, not much more than a name than some people might recognise but the imagined episodes of her life in the book are teasing and delicious. She was a very unusual woman, far more interesting than the author herself but the author wrote about her well. Therein lies hope. If Julie Powell can write this well when not writing about herself, then maybe there will be other, non-autobiographical books in the future. Meanwhile I look forward to the non-pareil acting of Meryl Streep to illuminate both Julia Child and the film way above the standard of the book.

An addendum. I used to belong to a private group on GR of women trying to lose weight. They were all American. They HATED this book with a passion, I mean more than a passion. They wanted the author punished and no one to stock her books and everyone to 1-star her. What was her crime? She was a Democrat. I stood up for her because I am not an American and I don't know much details about internal American politics, nor do I care. You don't get the same strength of feeling in the UK about who is Labour and who is Tory, so I don't even really understand it. Anyway they threw me out and all of them banned me! (One later wrote in an IM to the mod of a private group that I was a whore who had lived with two men at the same time. The mod thought it was funny. It was true, except I'm not a whore, but they were in different countries.)

Now strangely, not long after this I was friendly and in a secret group with another set of Americans. All Democrats. There were problems over the same book. They all wanted me to agree that Republicans were the devil's spawn. The only man in the group took me to task about defending evil Republicans. They threw me out too. I wasn't respectful enough to the guy apparently. Oh. Right. There you go.

These two events hurt me so much that I had to console myself with several bars of chocolate and a whole evening of Masterchef. And rereading and editing this review again, I am still so distraught that I am going to have to finish the bottle of chocolate Baileys and hope I feel better then.

Kind of rewritten 4 Jan 2016 ...more

flag 118 likes · Like · see review

Nov 19, 2009 La Petite Américaine rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: auto-bios-etc, frenchie_stuff, food, rants

Author Julia Powell is a mix of many people. From page one, when she tells us she sold her own eggs to pay off credit debt, she is much like the dreaded person seated next to you on a long-haul flight that proceeds to tell you their life story in a matter of minutes. She is also the TMI girl that we all know, whose narrative describes the smell of her burps and piss, bitches incessantly about her job and Republicans, describes smelly cocks, drinks too many cocktails, tells us she sleeps with her Author Julia Powell is a mix of many people. From page one, when she tells us she sold her own eggs to pay off credit debt, she is much like the dreaded person seated next to you on a long-haul flight that proceeds to tell you their life story in a matter of minutes. She is also the TMI girl that we all know, whose narrative describes the smell of her burps and piss, bitches incessantly about her job and Republicans, describes smelly cocks, drinks too many cocktails, tells us she sleeps with her face on her husband's ass, says fuck every other word and undoubtedly finds herself witty and funny while being oblivious to the gaping jaws and cringes of those around her. She smacks and insults her loving and patient husband while contemplating cheating on him and living vicariously through her slutty friends, both single and married. (I smell a divorce cooking.)

In short, she is the loud girl we all wish would shut the fuck up.

She also started a year-long cooking/blog project -- an idea given to her and set up by the very husband she treats like garbage -- to cook every recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She proceeds to alter and screw up recipes, partly due to their difficulty, partly due to her bad planning, and mostly due to her own stupidity: i.e., boning a fowl isn't that difficult so stop stressing about it; why don't you try asking the butcher if he can slice the bone marrow for you instead of trying it yourself and making a disgusting mess?; please don't tell us about getting lobster meat out with a tweezer. We are, of course, supposed to laugh at this and find it all funny. Ha. Ha.

As she embarked on this culinary journey, I couldn't help but remember that she'd mentioned having three cats and a python, and being disgusted that this was the environment in which she'd be cooking. But no worries. She will of course tell us about the cat hair in the kitchen and in the food, along with the dead mice for her snake shoved in the same bag as her cooking ingredients. And the vegetables falling on the rotted out kitchen floor, which she naturally picks up and throws into the pot. And the flies in her kitchen. That lead her to find the maggots. In her kitchen. Yummy.

Julie ends up getting lots of media attention, a big blog following, a book/movie deal out of the whole thing. An ignorant reader like myself gains a new appreciation for the complexity of Julia Child's recipes and something like (but not quite) admiration for the author actually going through with cooking every recipe in the book.

This will not go on my "sucked" shelf, as is certainly didn't suck. I give it one star for being very readable and for being a somewhat touching story of how one nobody became somebody all by herself. I simply didn't like her tone. I just couldn't take it.

I hear she has a sequel coming out next month, this time about being a butcher. Would I read it? Absolutely. Not because I want to read about her mutilating dead animals and describing even more bodily functions we don't need to know about. Really, I'm dying to know if she divorces that kind husband who was by her side the whole time. I'm betting she did. ...more

flag 109 likes · Like · see review

Mar 31, 2016 Madeline rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, ugh, the-movie-is-better

In the immortal words of Michael Bluth: "I don't know what I expected."

I knew what I was getting into with this, I really did. It is a well-documented fact that Julie Powell is a delusional asshole (if you need a good laugh, look at the reviews for Cleaving, her second book - they all essentially boil down to "Wow, so turns out Julie Powell is horrible"), and even if I hadn't been aware of this, there's the fact that whenever I watch the movie adaptation of Julie and Julia, I skip the Julie part ...more

flag 133 likes · Like · see review

Aug 16, 2007 Jennifer rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: No One

I love the concept, I really do; not so much the finished product.

Had she not made the fuuny reference to my favorite line in Casablanca near the begininning of the book, I never would have been able to finish it. The thought of finding another gem like that made me stick with it even when I wanted to throw Julie out of a twenty-story window. The whiny, self-absorbed, melodramtic, narcissistic, trite (yet on occasion deliciously funny) Julie Powell decides to take up a project to add meaning to I love the concept, I really do; not so much the finished product.

Had she not made the fuuny reference to my favorite line in Casablanca near the begininning of the book, I never would have been able to finish it. The thought of finding another gem like that made me stick with it even when I wanted to throw Julie out of a twenty-story window. The whiny, self-absorbed, melodramtic, narcissistic, trite (yet on occasion deliciously funny) Julie Powell decides to take up a project to add meaning to her life, or at least to distract herself from dealing with it: She decides that she is going to cook every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and that she is going to do it in the time span of a year.

Julie never mentions how many hours she actually works in a week at her "oh pity me, the lowly secretary who still makes enough money to live in New York and buy enough food to cook every single recipe in the Julia Child MtAoFC cookbook" job, but I honestly have a very difficult time believing that she worked full time, commuted, did the grocery shopping, cooked every single recipe in the book, wrote a blog, and yet still had time to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (I mean, really, does anyone that gave this book five stars actually cook?!?) She does make the point very clear that she didn't clean at all that year. And she did allow herself to gain an untold amount of weight rather than work out. I suppose that gave her a little extra time to devote to this project. And on top of all that she expected her husband and her friends to support her insanity, wholeheartedly and unabashedly. Eric should have kept a blog for the year about putting up with Julie!

For a book about cooking, there is a sad lack of description regarding the various recipes. Sure, she does go into detail about excavating bone marrow and dismembering lobsters, but what about the food? I didn't get the impression that she actually loves food so much as that she has a gluttonous relationship to it. Don't want to deal with your feelings? That's okay, just stuff them down with extremely high fat foods and ignore the consequences. I have no patience for this sort of self defeatist behavior; the average overweight american who refuses to take responsibility for their own health and instead assumes a false sense of pride over being carefree about their food choices. And then just accepts a dependence upon pharmaceuticals to manage the ill effects. Is it really any wonder that heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States?

This may have been an entertaining blog, but the "My bleaders like me, they really like me!" tone did not translate very well into a book. If you have any interest whatsoever in her story, save yourself the money (and grief) of reading this book and just read her blog [http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/0...]

...more

flag 61 likes · Like · see review

Feb 08, 2008 Katie rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: foodie, i-expected-so-much-more-from-you, never-trust-popular-opinion, memoir, new-york

Completely and utterly disappointing.

I was so in love with the idea that Julie came up with: to recreate each of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I never had read her blog before, and my expectations for the book were high.

Unfortunately, Julie is a completely repulsive, unappealing and vulgar human being. Her self-deprecating - humor, was it? - didn't make me find her charmingly witty; rather, I just believed what she was telling me and decided that she was i ...more

flag 54 likes · Like · see review

Apr 22, 2008 Jonathan rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: food, time-i-wish-i-had-back

I read The Scavengers Guide to Haute Cuisine, and I really liked it. I figured this book would be along the same lines. Yeah, well, it wasn't. Instead of a book about cooking, it was a book about a whiny, pseudo-intellectual woman who tries to cook because her life is otherwise crappy. Please tell me how cooking an entire Julia Child cookbook will improve your life. Actually, don't, because that is the premise for this book and it sucked.

Oh, and reading about her husband was cringe-worthy. This ...more

flag 51 likes · Like · see review

Aug 27, 2018 Aishu Rehman rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: english-literature

What a disapointment. I thought it would be a fun read, someone working through a life crisis by cooking their way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1, but I threw the book in the trash after reading the first few chapters and thumbing through the rest. The profanity, baseness and the f-bombs are inappropriate and don't add anything to the content.

flag 43 likes · Like · see review

Jun 09, 2012 Ari rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Oh Jesus. Bear with me because this is going to be long.

Mrs. Julie Powell. The woman, the legend. The horror tale. The first thing you have to know about her is; she's not like other women, she reads books. According to that logic, this entire website constitutes an anomaly in the Venn diagram of women everywhere, so take that as you will.

She's one of the most self-absorbed people I've ever had the displeasure of coming in contact with - and on top of that she's a disgusting slob. Powell repeate Oh Jesus. Bear with me because this is going to be long.

Mrs. Julie Powell. The woman, the legend. The horror tale. The first thing you have to know about her is; she's not like other women, she reads books. According to that logic, this entire website constitutes an anomaly in the Venn diagram of women everywhere, so take that as you will.

She's one of the most self-absorbed people I've ever had the displeasure of coming in contact with - and on top of that she's a disgusting slob. Powell repeatedly talks (at length) about the poor state of the house, what with cat hairs everywhere, thick layers of dust on everything, fleets of flies, maggots in the kitchen where you're cooking on a daily basis, but God forbid she actually does something about it. Besides whining, that is. And no, "after a year of this, part of you just assumes there's gotta be some maggots somewhere around" is not an excuse for your kitchen being a health hazard. Now, I don't know about Long Island, but I live in a 40 sq ft flat straight out of a Polly Pocket rejected concept and I have never had a problem keeping the bloody kitchen clean. Even with pets around. In the end (and I mean the end as in the actual end, after a year of not tidying up) it's her husband who cleans the entire flat after one of her fits. I feel so sorry for that man because "[...] on the second-to-last day of a year of torture imposed on the man you love, you scream and throw things and call him an idiot, and instead of slamming the front door in your face [...] he cleans the house while you nap." Amazing.

I don't mind her language but the melodrama gets old real quick. If you have issues cutting the marrow then plan ahead and ask the butcher. They're there for a reason. If you're having trouble with the mayonnaise then maybe read the whole recipe beforehand instead of just tossing everything into a bowl hoping for a miracle. Seriously, this is one of the things that bothered me the most; she never actually planned anything. She repeatedly mucks up recipes because apparently she's never read them in advance. We're talking about 5-pages recipes that she just decides to go ahead and try without a bit of preparation. That's unfathomable to me.

On top of that she consistently treats her husband like utter garbage, consistently talks shit about her "friends," turning them into the butt of a joke or a misguided moral of the story: "look, I'm messed up but at least I'm not the 24-year-old having sex with the married Cali guy!". She hops on the highest of horses and judges this friend of hers, Isabel, who decides to divorce her husband after falling in love with and English guitarist. This after consistently mistreating her own husband and entertaining herself with the idea of adultery (the entire David-Strathairn-seducing made me feel so uncomfortable I had to put the book down for a minute). Funniest thing: apparently, after publishing this first book (because yes, she somehow got a deal for another one), she had an affair that lasted two years and was chronicled in her second book. Which. Alright. You're no paragon of virtue, either. Quite the opposite, in fact. Maybe you should shut your trap and stop judging literally every single one of your "friends". If you still have them.

She keeps tracing this line between herself - The Democrat - and everyone else at work - The Republicans - and then proceeds to write some of the most asinine, racist, prejudiced, misogynistic sentences. And, just in case you'd forgotten how thoroughly American something can be, Powell makes sure to remind you every four pages or so that every other place is a Barbaric Wasteland light years behind, and America is the Only Land worth living in. Which sure dampens my European spirits when all I was expecting from this book was a fun light read about cooking and living. But no. Racial stereotypes and prejudices abound. There's the veiled daughter of a bedouin, the ancient Japanese sex position, the bigoted Sicilian women who cross themselves every time they see Julie's red-headed brother, there's the Hungarian policeman who steals money from tourists, the cannibal Germans, kinky Asian euphemisms for watersports, repressed Islamic societies --- oh, and did I mention the gas chamber jokes? Right when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

And let's not forget about the rape jokes, because those are always so much fun and I wouldn't want to miss out.

If you're wondering why I haven't talked about cooking, it's because there's not much cooking in this book. Sure, Powell spends quite some time in the kitchen, but she barely cooks. She yells, she cries, she throws things, she slams pans and pots on the counter top, she breaks kitchen utensils. "How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity" is not an hyperbole. Powell actually has no chill, and the last place she should spend time in is the kitchen. ...more

flag 32 likes · Like · see review

Mar 05, 2009 D rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: fans of chick lit, fans of self-flagellation, fans of maggots

Recommended to D by: Janet

Shelves: cooking-baking-kitchen, memoir, nonfiction, horror-gore

Julie disappointed me. Her tone was tired (I've rassled too many self-loathing Gen Xers who think that airing their dirty laundry is fresh and shocking; it's not; ever heard of reality TV? it's merely degrading; if it's dime-store therapy you're seeking via the blogosphere, good luck getting stable, coherent advice from your comments section). Additionally, she thought insulting her husband was funny, admitting to maggots under her dish drainer a good romp, and marital infidelity blase'. I have ...more

flag 22 likes · Like · see review

Sep 26, 2007 Lena rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

There are some inspired moments in Julie Powell’s memoir of the year she spent cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Powell can be a very funny writer, and the book is sprinkled with abundant samples of the snarky wit that no doubt made the blog on which this book was based so popular. Her topic is certainly a rich one—the processes of making gelatin from actual calves’ feet or flaying a lobster alive while feeling a generous dose of liberal guilt certainl ...more

flag 21 likes · Like · see review

Dec 21, 2007 Christine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who truly love food and no one else

I think there's an unfortunate trend that people follow these days, particularly women, to verbally criticize themselves in a hyper self-aware manner, as if recounting all of their faults (real or imagined)will not only amuse the listener, but prove that they are stoic-even good humored-about being the biggest, fattest, ugliest, ding battiest failures to ever grace the earth.

"Doesn't he get it? Doesn't he understand that if I don't get through the whole book in a year then this whole thing will ...more

flag 21 likes · Like · see review

Jan 12, 2008 Firecooked rated it it was amazing

Shelves: foodie-books

The book is written by Julie Powell, about her 1 year self-imposed challenge to cook everything in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of Fine Cooking. The project was motivated by feeling stuck in her job (a low level drone in a government office) as well as rebellion towards the whole Alice Waters, locovore, trendy foodie things. I instantly connected with the author – she was a Buffy the Vampire fan (the blog was going on during the last season), found the act of preparing food very sensual, and ...more

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

Feb 19, 2008 Jennifer rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I love the concept- the story of the author working her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking one recipe at a time, skipping nothing. At its root it's a true life adventure- something I can experience vicariously.

On the other hand, sometimes the execution is flawed. (I *really* didn't want to know about the maggot infestation in the author's kitchen, I know my kitchen isn't perfectly hygenic. But maggots under the dish drai ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Feb 07, 2011 Diane rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

Saw the movie - had to read the book. So far, I have my reservations, but I'm not very far in yet.

I read a few more chapters and gave up. The author rambles - and not in a good way. I could not work up any interest in the folks in the book - just didn't care what they did next. Combine that with the author's potty mouth, and it's back to the Library to find a book worth reading - maybe Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child.

This is one of those rare examples of the movie being a lot ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Dec 02, 2018 Andreia rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: livros-iniciados-mas-não-terminados, ano-2018

Há livros muito bons que são adaptados ao cinema e, quando os vemos, sentimos que sabem a pouco. Mesmo sendo bons filmes, alguns até muito bons, mas nunca tão bons como os livros: "As horas", "A casa dos espíritos", "Jane Eyre", a série "Millennium" (gostei sobretudo da versão sueca), as várias adaptações das obras de Jane Austen.

Depois há livros assim-assim que são adaptados ao cinema e dão filmes simpáticos, do tipo "pipoca" ou "de domingo". Nestes, muitas vezes são os actores que elevam as na ...more

flag 12 likes · Like · see review

Jul 30, 2008 Julie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Julie Powell was a 29 year-old temp living in the outer boroughs and suffering from late-20s ennui and the kind of despair that comes from hating your career and thinking you should have done more with yourself by now. To give herself a goal - something I can very much sympathize with - she decided she would make all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. She also started a blog to chronicle her (mis)adventures. This book is an outgrowth of that experienc Julie Powell was a 29 year-old temp living in the outer boroughs and suffering from late-20s ennui and the kind of despair that comes from hating your career and thinking you should have done more with yourself by now. To give herself a goal - something I can very much sympathize with - she decided she would make all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. She also started a blog to chronicle her (mis)adventures. This book is an outgrowth of that experience.

From the start I saw some crazy parallels to that book that so gets the bile rising in my throat - Eat Pray Love. Turns out, Liz Gilbert was actually a mentor and reviewer of Powell's book. Both are white, middle-class women who can turn a phrase who decided to add meaning to their chaotic lives by creating wildly over-structured plans of action.

On the one hand, Julie Powell is probably more likeable than Liz - more honest in her self-deprecation, and more charming in her witty cynicism. Point for Julie.

On the other hand, Julie's book structure did not work as well as Liz's, though it pains me to say. The book read a lot like a blog that had been sloppily edited into a book.

I appreciated Julie's honesty about her temper, her relationship with her husband, and her struggles with despair - she came off, to me, as a sympathetic protagonist. But on the other hand, her honesty tended to feel overboard and often, added for shock value. I could give a f*** about her potty mouth - hello have you met me? - but I would have loved to have been spared the details about her absolutely filthy apartment and questionable sanitary habits, for example.

Probably the biggest problem with the book is that it was marketed as a book about cooking, when in fact it was just a relatively shallow autobiography with few larger lessons or takeaway points. It was an average, semi-well-spoken woman's memoir as she approaches the age of 30. I know about 100 ennui-suffering, confused, smart, well-spoken gals hovering around the 30-range; why am I reading Julie Powell's story and not theirs?

I would imagine, moreover, that the foodies who picked up this book were PISSED about the lack of attention given to the cooking process and the food, and about the over-attention given to Julie's feelings, mood swings, and tendency toward TMI. ...more

flag 11 likes · Like · see review

Mar 24, 2008 JSou rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biographies-memoirs, mmmmm-food

I must've really needed this kind of book right about now. I bought it about a year ago when I saw it on the B&N clearance table, but then shelved it. I've actually been hearing a lot about it lately (I'm sure because of the upcoming film), so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I loved this. I really couldn't put it down. Reading through the author's experiences as she cooks through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking reminded me of how delicious and sometimes therapeutic cooking a h ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Jul 27, 2007 Stefani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

To me this is a book about finding sanity in structure. Julie doesn't know what to do with her life, so she manufactures a project...

By completing at least one new recipe a day, and blogging about it, she finds herself so consumed that she has little time to obsess about her dead-end job, and her possible infertility.

It reminds me a lot of "Rosemary Goes to the Mall," a podcast in which an art instructor makes a project of shopping from and getting a bag from every store in the Mall of America.. ...more

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Oct 19, 2018 Luísa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Na minha opinião, o filme e mais bonito :)

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Sep 15, 2016 Melindam rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Noone

Shelves: graveyard-of-dnf-books, meh, cooking-and-baking, idiotic-heroine, phoney-and-self-indulgent-as-hell

A DISTASTEFUL BOOK FROM AN OBNOXIOUS WOMAN WHO SHOULD BE OFFICIALLY BANNED FROM ANY KITCHEN INCLUDING HER OWN.

I saw the lovely film before reading the book (or trying to read it anyway) & I could not understand why Julia Child did not want to meet Julie Powell...
Now I know & agree completely: I would/do not want to meet her either.
Her / the book's only merit is her apparent honesty, though the fact that she thinks this kind of honesty is witty and hilarious as opposed to vulgar and cri ...more

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Aug 17, 2009 Miriam rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: New Yorkers, food snobs

Recommended to Miriam by: First Reads

Shelves: culinary

I wanted to like this but Julie Powell just wouldn't let me. Her constant whining and neurotic, self-absorbed personality so grated on me that they undermined the aspects of the book that did appeal to me: cooking and humor. I don't even want to see the movie after reading this, although I do still want to read My Life in France.

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

May 04, 2011 Wendy Darling rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, non-fiction, cooking-and-baking

Julia was a goddess among women. Julie...not so much.

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Sep 29, 2017 Saleh MoonWalker rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, autobiography, biography, humor

Onvan : Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living - Nevisande : Julie Powell - ISBN : 031610969X - ISBN13 : 9780316109697 - Dar 310 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2005

flag 7 likes · Like · see review

Oct 26, 2009 Lucy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

For a few months there, it seemed like everyone was reading this book. Then, just as suddenly, everyone was going to the movie. And liking it!

I wasn't tempted to do either, and felt a bit out-of-sorts being so out of vogue. Still, I knew I didn't care to read about a woman who had tried all of Julia Child's recipes found in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Frankly, french cooking turns me off and besides watching Dan Aykroyd satire Julia Child on Saturday Night Live, I didn't really know For a few months there, it seemed like everyone was reading this book. Then, just as suddenly, everyone was going to the movie. And liking it!

I wasn't tempted to do either, and felt a bit out-of-sorts being so out of vogue. Still, I knew I didn't care to read about a woman who had tried all of Julia Child's recipes found in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." Frankly, french cooking turns me off and besides watching Dan Aykroyd satire Julia Child on Saturday Night Live, I didn't really know much about the famous chef either.

When this book showed up in my mailbox as part of a long-distance book club I joined, destiny laughed in my face at my attempt to snub a popular book. So I read it.

Turns out, my first instinct was the right one.

Julie & I (did you see what I did there? Huh? Clever, eh?), the woman who fundamentally hates republicans, seems to have little respect for a husband who amazingly seems to respect her, and who can't seem to formulate a sentence without flaunting her I-will-throw-in-the-F-bomb-anytime-I-feel-like-it mentality, would not get along. While we both like to blog, and probably both imagine ourselves to be a lot more important than we actually are, we have very little common ground.

For some very undeveloped reason, she begins an obsessive journey to cook all of the hundreds of recipes found in Child's recipe book within the time frame of one year. Never mind that it means she will have to eat things she finds disgusting, feed meals to her friends, family and husband that they find disgusting, and spend money she doesn't have on ingredients she can't find - she apparently just has to do it!

Lucky for her, her meaningless obsession turned into a lucrative book deal and even more lucrative movie deal. We should all be so rewarded for focusing the majority of our time and energy on something that benefits so few, if any. I think, however, that because her story got made into a book, and, crazily, a movie with huge movie stars, her experience was validated as meaning something. It changed her. I guess. Gave her something to proudly say she accomplished. I guess. Gave her free range to cuss and cuss at anyone who minded that she cussed. Definitely.

O.K. I'll admit it - her tacky swearing in print annoyed me. Why in the world would someone writing a memoir, with time and a thesaurus and editors on hand, choose to use such a trashy and limited vocabulary in something that will last well beyond their own short life? I get it in novels. Some characters think and speak like that. I even get it in non-fiction. Hey, much of life is R-rated. But, in a memoir? In a I'm-a-pretty-funny-lady memoir? That's the word you want to use when you have time and plenty of alternatives available?

In the end, I just wanted it to end. I wanted to know how and if all the eggs and cream and butter and bone marrow mattered. They don't. I was tired of reading about her messy and absolutely nauseating kitchen (maggots, people. Maggots.) I was really, really tired of Julie. Not Julia, because she's hardly in the book, but Julie. That last page, which took awhile to get to after a couple of cruel false endings, couldn't come quick enough.

I still haven't seen the movie. I've heard it is better than the book. But, I'm weary and untrusting now. Meryl and Amy might manage to salvage this story, but I'll never know because I'm not going to succumb a second time.

Once was enough. ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Jan 19, 2015 Amy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, 2015-books-read

I watched the movie when it came out, but I had to read this after getting Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas this year and diving into Julia's recipes. After perusing the cookbook and seeing how many offal and aspic recipes there were as well as how maze-like the recipes are often written, I knew I had to read about someone else's experience with the cookbook. I can't believe Julie cooked all 500-something recipes in the book (AND in 1 year) because Julia lost me at offal and asp I watched the movie when it came out, but I had to read this after getting Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas this year and diving into Julia's recipes. After perusing the cookbook and seeing how many offal and aspic recipes there were as well as how maze-like the recipes are often written, I knew I had to read about someone else's experience with the cookbook. I can't believe Julie cooked all 500-something recipes in the book (AND in 1 year) because Julia lost me at offal and aspic. So I definitely have respect for Julie's project. But I guess what ended up making this book less than stellar for me is just finding Julie's personality to be a little grating. The movie was certainly cast well with Amy Adams in the part because she does that type of personality well.

I thought once about writing a cooking blog and calling it "The Clumsy Cook". But then I realized how pathetic that would sound. Yes, it's true that I once served my family stir fry with bits of a broken plate in it and that I ruined a flan by accidentally pouring a little water into the flan rather than into the water bath pan. Those were certainly cooking accidents to learn from (never assume that the plate that you broke near your food didn't end up in your food and always place flan into a water bath rather than filling up the water bath around it). But I'm not sure it's the best idea to highlight your cooking clumsiness, failures, and how angry you get at your food as your writing schtick even if it is entertaining. Perhaps it's good for a short laugh, but it eventually makes a writer sound pathetic and maybe a little manic. This is definitely so in Julie's case. I have to wonder if she truly is manic or if that's just the persona she put on for writing. On the other hand, I think I would have been equally annoyed to read about someone who tried cooking all 500-something recipes from Julia's cookbook with everything turning out picture perfect every time. That would be inhuman. Especially since some of Julia Child's recipes read like the inside of House of Leaves or a choose-your-own-adventure book where you have to keep flipping to other recipes which reference other recipes in order to cook one thing.

My plans are to make Julia's favorite chocolate almond cake and her beef bourguignon this weekend. I think having read this book makes me want to approach these recipes not as recipes that must be tackled or surmounted, but as recipes that are accomplishable with patience and an eye (and mouth) to the delectable results.

I did enjoy this book, but not nearly enough to call it great. Still, I'm glad I read it and glad that there was a movie version of it. I like that it exists to connect those other of us that have attempted to teach ourselves French cuisine by way of Julia Child ... and for those of us who have danced around our kitchens momentarily impersonating Julia Child with "a little wine for food and a little wine for the cook." ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Jan 08, 2008 Wendy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: foodies, peole who need a good laugh or a little inspiration

In order to give her life some definition,(and blinders to the onset of her 30th birthday) Julie Powell decides to cook every recipe from Julia Child's, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume One, within one year. She cooks everything from tarts to cow brains in her tiny New York apartment. The book reminded me of Bridget Jones meets, well, Julia Child. It is funny, interesting, and a little inspirational. She is candid with her personal life as well as with the results of what became the Ju ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 08, 2007 Jessica rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: food

I had started poking around Julie Powell's blog rather late in the game of her writing it, so it was very hard to catch up with her adventures in cooking. I looked forward to the book, which I expected would tighten the diary structure and take us through a cohesive story. Boy, was I disappointed.

This book is a mishmash of anecdotes about Julie Powell's life that spring off of her central narrative without rhyme or reason. I think I could forgive that, if they were interesting anecdotes, but the ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Feb 16, 2017 J.P. Willson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I have wanted to see the movie, Julie and Julia since it was released. I have not yet seen it. To be honest I had no idea what the movie was even about except for the fact it was in some way about Julia Child. I have adored Julia Child for a very long time so this is why I was drawn to the movie trailer. I am a red seal chef so there is another attraction right there. This book, I was not aware even existed till a few weeks ago. So I guess all can see the connection I would quite obviously have ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Apr 22, 2019 Mayar El Mahdy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I finally read this book and I am so very grateful for it, and for my improving English and ability to listen to audio books while doing chores and loading the dishwasher.

I wanna make my husband read this book, if I get married at some point.

This is more than a book about a cookbook, it's about taking chances and believing that you can do a year long project, a reminder how it's good to have a loving family and a nice husband, most importantly it's about how good fortune come in unexpected ways. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Play Book Tag: (Listopia) Julie and Julia by Julie Powell 3 stars	12	22	Mar 10, 2018 06:48PM
La Stamberga dei ...: Dal libro al film: Julie&Julia	3	19	Aug 26, 2014 05:15AM
La Stamberga dei ...: Julie & Julia di Julie Powell	1	8	Aug 22, 2014 02:58AM
Food and Fiction.: Julie and Julia. Which is better, the book or the film?	10	56	Dec 17, 2013 11:05AM
im inspired!	22	120	Jan 23, 2013 02:23PM
Madison Mega-Mara...: Julie and Julia	1	5	Jan 06, 2012 01:39PM

Readers Also Enjoyed

Genres

Nonfiction

1,410 users

Autobiography > Memoir

962 users

Food and Drink > Food

825 users

Food and Drink > Cooking

321 users

Biography

288 users

See top shelves…

About Julie Powell

Julie Powell

266 followers

Julie Powell was born and raised in Austin, Texas, where she first fell in love with cooking — and her husband, Eric. She is the author of a cooking memoir, Julie & Julia, which was released in 2005. Her writing has appeared in Bon Appétit, The New York Times, House Beautiful, and Archaeology Magazine, among others. She lives in Long Island City, Queens.

Books by Julie Powell

Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession

Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

One (Wo)man, One Vote: A History of the Fight for Voting Rights in America

A Paris All Your Own: Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light

Fort Oglethorpe (Images of America: Georgia)

More…

Trivia About Julie and Julia: ...

7 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from Julie and Julia: ...

“But the not-very-highbrow truth of the matter was that the reading was how I got my ya-yas out.

For the sake of my bookish reputation I upgraded to Tolstoy and Steinbeck before I understood them, but my dark secret was that really, I preferred the junk. The Dragonriders of Pern, Flowers in the Attic, The Clan of the Cave Bear. This stuff was like my stash of Playboys under the mattress.” — 65 likes

“The nice thing about having a friend who is crazier than you are is that she bolsters your belief in your own sanity.” — 57 likes

More quotes…