I can't believe that I actually finished this book. I thought it was horrible. I absolutely did not like it. I thought the book would have more to do with actual cooking rather than having to read about the author complaining, nagging, whinning, and more complaining.... I've been to culinary school myself, and of course had to learn a lot of French/ Classical ways of cooking; and yes, it can be very stressful, but not once did I ever throw a crying fit because of it. I think the author over exaggerated a lot about the stresses of French cooking, even if she was just following what Julia Child's cookbook said. No wonder she said that Julia Child didn't like her. I wouldn't either if she were crying about something so simple that a cookbook could be made out of it. If it's so much of a problem to you, you should have just went to Culinary School.

There were so many times that I just wanted to give up reading this terrible book. But I can't find it in myself to quit something that I already started. So for all of you who'd like to put yourselves through it, by all means, go ahead and try reading it for yourself....

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this is one of the worst books i've attempted to read. julie is not funny. her mouth is straight out of a sewer. and the book has very little to do with cooking julia's childs recipes. i really don't care how often she has sex with her husband, or how pathetic her job is. the only time she talks about cooking is when she is talking about how she is cheating at the recipes. this book is not worth the paper it is printed on.

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I did not finish this book because, quite frankly, it was very offensive. She continually puts down Republicans, belittles those who lost loved ones on Sept 11, makes fun of Christians, her language was obscene, and half of the time she writes like an ADD person without their meds. I can say this because I AM an ADD person and even on my worse day, meds or no meds, I am more coherent than she was.

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Did I hate this book? No. Could I have done without the author injecting her political veiws every chance she had? You betcha. I wanted to read a book that seemed interesting. I didn't need the author's politics shoved into my face every chance she could. Still, it is an interesting book. The author does come off as whiny in some places... you think your husband's Aunt may have died in a bombing, but you're more concerned about a dish that you're trying to prepare in your kitchen that later turns out to be infested by maggots? Ick.

Still, cudos to the author for taking on such a task and for making it entertaining. Maybe the reason the real Julia hated the blog was because the author spent so much time talking about herself and not about the food.

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The book reads more like a really long blog entry. It is well written, but the storyline meanders and some people we are given probably a bit too much info about, and others almost nothing. Powell is staunchly anti-Republican, which is fine, except that her reasons are never explained, just constant mention of the fact that she thinks Republicans suck. All in all I enjoyed it, but it probably could have done with some tightening up.

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I was highly disappointed in this book, if you're looking for a good mix of Julie and Julia, you won't find it here. In fact this book should be called All about Julie with just a tiny bit of Julia thrown in for fun. And the ending about what Julia thought of Julie, just didn't even seem right, and no real explanation was given for Julia's thoughts either, which I found odd. I think the movie looks better compared to the book as I really did not see where all the scenes with Julia were that I had seen in the previews. I was highly disappointed in the lack of Julia in this book. And Julie has a mouth on her that would put most people to shame. The start of the book seemed rather interesting and then it dropped from there. I actually had to stop reading the book for a week before I went back to it because I became disgusted with it. Just not what I had expected at all.

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For the last couple days I've been laughing my butt off reading Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. In a nutshell, a woman, Julie, who is nearing 30, stuck in a dead-end job, and feeling generally hopeless with how life has turned out, decides to make every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She will make all these recipes within one year's time and she will blog about it.

And hilarity ensues.

It briefly crossed my mind to repeat this experiment until I read some of the ingredients this project includes. I am a picky eater (even before I had a dietary disorder to hide behind). I have been very brave over the last few years trying some new things but I have to draw a few lines:

*I don't ever want to eat a cooked lobster, let alone vivisect a live one. (Great word though, vivisect.)

*I'm thinking any sort of aspic made from calves' hooves gelee would taste like feet. Or worse.

*I never eat eggs. (Julie also hated eggs and didn't start eating them until the project. I'll take her word that they are good without actually eating them myself, thank you very much.)

*So, I certainly would not eat poached eggs in aspic.

*Brains.

I hate having to write conclusions to reviews and essays and the like. They always seem so trite. "Julie faces trials and tribulations but learns something about herself in the end."

This book is freakin' hilarious. That's all you need to know. I don't think you have to be a cook or lover of cooking to enjoy it. Julie works and blogs and cooks and does every day stuff just like the rest of us, so it's really a book for anyone.

Originally published at my blog:
http://whereintheworld-stephanie.blogspot.com

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Julie Powell decides to salvage her life and her marriage by cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I - in one year. One reviewer called it "Bridget Jones meets The French Chef," and that about says it. This is a delightful read, lots of fun and lots of food.

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I found this book boring, with sub-par writing. I know it started as a blog, so maybe that was the problem for me--everything seemed so disjointed. I didn't feel like there was really anything cohesive about the book (aside from the cooking--but that didn't seem all that consistent, either). To be fair, I didn't make it past the first couple of chapters, so maybe it gets better. But I just couldn't stick around to find out. Just as an aside, I felt like the author made light of 9-11 and the work done in its aftermath. I didn't care for that, either.

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This book is raucous fun. The author is a potty-mouth and full of hysteria. I loved it.

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This is a first -- the movie was better than the book. See the movie, definitely. Skip the book.

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I really enjoyed this book - it was involving and I could sympathize with the need to do SOMETHING with your life and wish I had an outlet like Julie did. The book features several mouthwatering scenes, and you'll definitely feel like having some French Cuisine afterwards! Note: Unlike the movie, the book does not really tell Julia Child's story (with the exception of some fictionalized letters from her husband) - to capture the story told in the movie, you'll also want to pick up "My Life in France" by Julia Child. "Julie & Julia" (the book) only deals with Julie Powell's blog and her goal to cook all 524 recipes in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year. A real treat for foodies especially.

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I tried. I really tried to like this, but the author's style just didn't work for me. Maybe this book wouldn't have been such a disappointment if I hadn't been looking for more of a tie-in to "Julia" than what was there. There's only the briefest actual reference to Child at the beginning of each chapter, and then it's these obscure premarital dalliances that really tell us nothing of the real Julia Child. The overall writing style of Powell was just not for me....she uses page after page of useless personal anecdotes of her friends unraveling lives when all I wanted to read about was COOKING for crying out loud! I skipped lines, then paragraphs, then pages....made no difference. There wasn't enough detail about the recipes, the cooking, Julia Child. Too much drivel about drunken friends, going home to Texas, and her unhappy job. And I never did understand the title: just how did her year of cooking become dangerous, exactly????? I was disappointed, to be sure.

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Here's an interesting memoir about a woman whose feeling a bit lost in her job and generally in a funk. At the bottom of her funk, she sets a personal goal to cook every recipe in Julia Child's book, the Art of French Cooking in a year! Julie sticks to her goal and starts a blog about her adventures on the way. She comes out not only a better cook, but a more confident person with an internet following!

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Julie is direct, funny, open, and seemingly very honest about her life. I admire that kind of honesty. The "Project" - cooking all of the receipes in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One" is crazy. It also seemed to be just the right thing for Julie Powell to do. It was fun to read, and inspiring in the "hope you find the right thing for you too" kind of ending that it had. The food sounded awful. I'm impressed she found the ingredients, and that her husband, Eric, was willing to eat the results. It's nice she and Eric found each other.
It was fun to read and made me laugh out loud at times.

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I found the premise of the book to be interesting, but the execution was tedious. After a while, I got frustrated with the author, who came across as whiny and self-absorbed at times. I suppose that's a potential complaint of any memoir type book, but I just found myself wanting to know more about her psychic connection to Julia Child and less about her feelings about her job and the bureaucrats she worked with. She hates her job and thinks all Republicans are troglodytes...I get it. Now get on with the book. Her opening chapters and her last chapter were very well done. The middle of the book, however, becomes bogged down with descriptions of her plumbing crises, her friends' love lives and her passing fancy with the semi-famous of NY, as well as the writings of a 17th century diarist. Who cares? Not me!

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I was so disappointed in this book. I have not watched the movie, so I had no expectations for the book to live up to or vice versa. I didn't even realize it was a memoir until about 100 pages in, though it says it in teeny tiny letters on the front cover.

The book was very dry at parts, and extremely scatterbrained. It was as if Julie Powell took all of her blog posts, randomly mixed them up, and then put them in book form.

I did enjoy seeing her write about being a Buffy fan... at first. As a fellow Buffy fan, I got excited at seeing someone else fawn over one of my favorite shows... lame, I know. Many, many Buffy references later, I was tired of seeing her try to somehow shove the show into her book. She writes on and on (and on and on) about how she didn't see the last episode of the series. How does this pertain to Julia Child and French cuisine??

Truthfully, I could not finish this book. I trudged through nearly 300 pages, but finally I became so disgusted that I stopped reading. After several instances where Julie pokes fun at her inability to keep a clean house, she finally goes over the line for me. Julie discovers a mass of maggots in her kitchen. I lost my appetite for this book.

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Laugh out loud funny. A very enjoyable read.

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A waste of time. F bombs all through it. Political bashing. I expected a story about food and the relationship between the author's cooking experiences and Julia Child's cookbook. Someone else should steal this idea and write another book. There's a good idea here but this author missed it by a mile.

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An interesting memoir of a NYC secretary who decides to tackle the voluminous "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volume 1" by Julia Child: cooking all of the recipes within it's covers over the course of an entire year. It took me a while to get really "into" this book, but it turned out to be worth the read. The author has a thing for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, writing blog entries, and David Strathairn. She is also vehemently anti-republican which is easy enough to detect, and may be offensive to some. Parts of this book, such as Lobster vivisection, are laugh out loud funny!

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I really enjoyed this book Julie and Julia. That said, I read it before the movie came out and waited anxiously for the movie.
As others have said, I agree that the movie is better than the book so if you are mainly interested in Julia this is not the book for you.

As I understand it, this book is was used as the basis for the julie portions of the movie and My life in France is the main source about Julia Child for her sections in the movie.

Having also read My LIfe in France - rare as it is - this movie is greater than the sum of the parts. However, I still am really glad that I have read both books.

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Yes, there is bad language in this book. Yes, the author is clearly a diehard Democrat who doesn't care much for Republicans. These things are true. However, this book is a fun read. I enjoyed hearing how the slightly neurotic author struggled and triumphed. I found her writing style to be witty and enjoyable. I loved the descriptions of the food she was cooking, especially items that initially revolted her.

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This was the first book I ever requested on PBS! However, I wish I'd read the reviews prior to doing so. Unlike some other reviewers, I knew that the emphasis would be on Julie and not Julia. I mean, the whole point of the book is document the adventures of a woman who attempts to cook all 500+ of Julia Child's recipes, right? Did you really expect it to be mostly about Julia? (The little snippets about Julia added a nice touch though.)

Anyways, I found the book fluffy and a quick read (finished in 3 days). I liked the details about the dishes she made and could relate to her cooking experiences (especially "bitch rice" and when she scoffs at recipes Julia says are easy). However, Julie was too neurotic and crass for my taste, although she's really funny at parts. Also, I'm not quite sure how she learned to live a life full of gusto. The parts of the book where she tries to express her lessons learned from "The Project" falls flat, in my opinion.

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Who knows if Julie Powell really drops the f-bomb every other sentence, injects her political views into every possible subject, hates her job & customers, or loves Domino's jalepeno bacon pizza AND marrow sauce. What I know is that I thoroughly enjoyed her cooking (mis)adventures. Honestly, a day by day account of her what she cooked and how would have grown tiresome. Her anectodotes and style are what make her memoir and the recipes come alive. Whether or not you've got the ears to handle Julie's mouth or the stomach to handle Julia's recipes, who doesn't love the thrill of setting thier life on a new path and experimenting with a new recipe in the kitchen?

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In a word this book was horrible. So bad in fact that I didn't even finish it. How it was made into a fantastic movie I have no idea. The character is foul mouthed, whinny, and I really don't care about her sex life. She all belittles the 9/11 families, and all Republicans, which I found very offensive. Don't waste your time.

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I really enjoyed the movie of the same title. I hated this book. Or, rather I should say I hated the first two chapters. I couldn't make it any farther than that. The author was crass, obnoxious and unlikable. Maybe there is more food talk later on in the book but all I got out of it was a lot of sex talk. Rare case of a movie being better than the book.

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it might be a funny book. I liked the concept and the author. But I just could not enjoy the book, it was just too unfocused for me.

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Love it! Quick read and so imaginative.

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Let's say, for example, that you are in your late twenties, living in New York City in a something-is-always-going wrong apartment, and working at a miserable dead-end secretarial job at a government agency. What do you do to stir up your life? Well, cook every recipe - 524 of them - from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I by Julia Child in 365 days of course! And that is precisely what Julie Powell, the author of Julie & Julia, set out to do.

Living in one of the most exciting cities and having a loving and supporting husband aside, Julie Powell was stuck in a rut. On a visit to her parents', Julie rediscovered the cookbook that appealed to her so much when she was a child; at her husband's urging, Julie decided to cook and blog her way through the entire Mastering the Art of French Cooking, dubbing it the "Julie/Julia Project". What followed was a year of entirely too much butter, aspic, things that refused to gel together, extracting bone marrow, the trauma of killing lobsters, and the list goes on. Through her cooking triumphs and disasters, frozen pipes, a freezing apartment and sludge filled sinks, Julie discovers a new meaning to life and comes to the realization that anything is possible.

Julia & Julia is a joy to read; you might find yourself laughing (or at least smiling) at Julie's remarks and her susceptibility to calamities of all kinds. Julie spares no punches when it comes to her beliefs, - her anti-Republican remarks may be offensive to some - but her memoir is straight forward, witty, inspirational and often flat-out hilarious.

Bon Appetit!

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Book rambled and whined about Julie's personal issues and didn't focus as much energy on the Julie/Julia dynamic as I would have liked.

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I was so very disappointed by the book. It was disjointed, and I felt like there was too much talking about things that weren't significant. I know it started as a blog, but that doesn't always make for a good book. I thought the concept was really cute. I'd like to try cooking through Julia's book myself.

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I hated it. It was very disappointing. I found myself skipping the chapters on Julie to find the chapters on Julia.

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Too much about Julie, who seems like a very shallow person, or at least I don't have the same problems with my gynecologist that she has.

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While the movie holds a special place in my heart for giving all of us corporate or government drones hope of freedom through culinary exploits well-written about, the book, quite literally, leaves a bad taste in your mouth (pun intended).

I'm not sure if it's knowing that Julie Powell not only cheated on her husband at a later date, but also wrote a book about her extramarital affair, especially given how supportive her husband, Eric, is through her "year of cooking dangerously," or if she just comes across as not a very nice person in this memoir. No wonder Julia Child herself found Julie's blog disrespectful and didn't approve of the project immediately prior to her death.

Julie's personality in the text makes her seem like a mean version of Bridget Jones who can cook (sort of). She's definitely not someone I'd want to be friends with, but the book is interesting for what it is . . . one clutsy, disorganized, and somewhat bitter woman's quest to distract herself from turning 30 and a ticking biological clock.

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An absolutely delightful book; much better than the movie. I loved reading about Julie's trials in the kitchen, at work, and in her marriage as she strives to cook every recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol.1". Julie writes with a lot of humor and a little bit of sarcasm. She is witty and entertaining. Don't pass up even if you have watched the movie.

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I was a HUGE fan of the movie, but the book was very vulgar, way too many F bombs and other coarse language. Too bad.

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I really didn't care for the crass language that started right off the bat. I read through the first chapter and stopped. Just a warning for those who care about that kind of thing.

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I found this book to be rather tedious. It read like a series of blog posts, which, I suppose, is how it started. The plot jumps from one catastrophe to another with little character development in between. It was a quick read, but not worth the effort.

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Ok. Cute story, but the movie was better (and I usually avoid movie-based-on-book because the book is typically much better. The political inputs detract from the story.

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I really enjoyed reading this book. My interest in the memoir was sparked by seeing coming attractions for the summer movie. Though I never plan to crack open Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I thoroughly enjoyed Julie Powell's blow by blows of her "project." It was funny and real and I felt like I missed out on something for not knowing about her blog when she was in the midst of the cooking project! Living just outside NYC, I appreciated the backdrop of NYC and comments on her experiences involving crisis and living through it.
My review does this book no justice, it really was a wonderful read and I had trouble putting it down! If Julie Powell has written anything else since, I will definitely read it!

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Fascinating concept. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about cooking, though there's so much more to this book than that.

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This is a great book. A young women with an uninspiring job takes on a monumental task of making every one of Julia Child's recipes in her French Cooking book. Very funny, conversational tone. Great discussion about the trials of cooking. Great for Julia fans, too.

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sometimes funny, sometimes weird book about cooking all the recipes in julia child's volume one french cookbook. a must-read for julia and cooking fans. movie (with meryl streep playing julia) to be released in august 2009.

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If you love to cook you will love this book! I did this for an entire year and enjoyed it immensely! You will too!

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This books surprised me in a few different ways.
1. I never knew Julia Child was that interesting and feisty!
2. I was not expecting so much swearing, it did not turn me off, but it surprised me. I think I was expecting the book to be more wholesome.
3. I did not expect to like a book about cooking, since well I hate to cook. She was so open about her life and her marriage, and I found it refreshing to read about someone real who makes mistakes and who is not afraid to speak her mind.

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Funny and charming.

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Very funny account of a woman (Julie) who decides to cook very recipe in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in one year. If you love Julia Child, or just cooking, you will love this book.

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Cute, light read with some interesting cooking tips.

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I really hoped to enjoy this book more than I actually did. I didn't really have any expectations of the book, so fortunately it didn't have to meet anything. I like plot and storylines, this isn't it. I know this is a memoir, but I have liked some memoirs, so I can't blame it on that.

I can go on some more, but I already spent too much time just trying to finish the book, I'm not going to spend more on here.

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This is not really a book about cooking (I like MFK Fisher for that), but I didn't expect it to be; it's about setting goals for yourself and finding something you believe in, and making changes in your life despite the difficulties in doing so. I did wish there had been more about Julia Child, but as is pointed out in both the book and the movie, the Julia Child here is really an idealized version. The cooking and personal stories are entertaining - much better than, say, ANY night watching television - and I'm glad to know, without having to go through it myself, that aspics really are as disgusting as they sound!

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Light and tasty read.

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I was not very fond of this book. I don't know what I expected, but I became bored with the story and didn't finish it. I loved the movie and expected the book to be better. Maybe my expectations were too high.

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Excellent Summer reading! It is well written and keeps you interested until the very end. I do not cook but I do remember watch Julia Child's program on TV - I could hear her distinctive voice when I read the passages attributed to her. I applaud Julie's strength and stamina (and her husband's patience)in taking on such a difficult challenge under that the best conditions. I highly recommend this book, it is funny, insightful and just a really good read.

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I have not finished reading this but I LOVE the movie so much that when I am depressed I watch it because it is a feel good movie-Annie

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so yes im on this culinary kick and i just loved this book! the author i can relate to- turning 30, wants to do something with her life, so she tackles julia child's french cookcook. almost 600 recipes in 365 days. the book was hilrious! she sounds like i wouldve been in the kitchen- except that i could probably find crazy foods easier in LA than she had to in NYC.

its such a great book- and really sad that julia child didnt appreciate it for what it was. i hope she continues writing- maybe by doing volume 2 of the cookbook.

(side note- it was hard to read all of the animal gore, but im sure if you eat meat it wont be too bad :-)

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Loved this book! It took me through one emotion after another.

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I liked it. It was a nice book, not too deep but I like cooking so that helped.

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An OK read--the plot is good, but the main character is a little hard to like at times. I for one would not eat anything she cooks...

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Great read. Very cute and light. Perfect for Sunday mornings in bed.

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Have you ever seen a movie and then just wanted to read the book because it seemed like a good idea at the time? That's how I decided to get this book and was then horribly disappointed. I had assumed, as I'm sure many who have seen the movie had, that the parts with Julia and Paul Child were based on actual events. They're not. Instead, the author thought it would be cute to make stuff up based on what she's (again, I'm assuming) read elsewhere. In a way, I felt oddly betrayed that the parts with the Julia and Paul Child were fiction when I was actually hoping for something that the author had researched. Although, the part where the real Julia Child put down the author was probably my favorite part. ;P

I had expected, from seeing the movie, that Julie was a bit of a drama-queen, but she's even more so in the book. I prefer to read a book where I either really like the character because they are someone I can understand or love hate them because they're such great villains. Julie is so self-absorbed and whiny on a consistent basis that I can't help but dislike her.

I mostly tried to keep going in the book just to see her fail (had to find something to keep my interest after all) but even that couldn't keep me going. I guess I'm not impressed by anyone who profits on the work and fame of others while at the same time believing that their writing skills are something worth publishing. This author is just another one of those writers who managed to get lucky and attract someone with no sense in what makes a book great. Powell's writing is not the kind that touches you. Instead it's the kind that makes you want to throw a book across the room because it's such trash.

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This book was fantastic and after watching the movie, the film turned out to be quite a let-down. I learned a TON about French cooking and cuisine and it has inspired me to look more into regional recipes of my own to try. I loved the letters and journals written by Julia Child's husband and both Julie and Julia possess quite the personalities to light up any novel!

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I really enjoyed the "Julie" parts of the book. I understand why Julie Powell added the "Julia" bits to the story, but I don't actually feel that they added anything to the book. The random letter snippets didn't seem to correspond in the right places. I do understand, however, why these sections would've made great transitions in the movie itself. It just didn't play well in the book. Powell's telling of her own story was great, though. I read this book quickly as a follow-up to "My Life In France," a biography of Julia Child.

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I loved this book It was really funny and also really heart warming at the same time.

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Not the greatest read. I skipped a lot of pages.

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This book surprised me in that I liked it so much more than the movie. Would definitely recommend to others, even if you have already seen the film. I got so much more out of the story through the words of Julie Powell in print.

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I thought this was a pretty good book. I seriously thought I would just get hungry while reading all the different recipes and meals she prepared, but in reality, I was kind of grossed out by some of the Julia Child's French recipes. Calves brains, kidneys, and gelatin made from various animal hooves does not sound appetizing to me at all, and found myself not ever wanting to try these recipes for myself.

It was a very interesting memoir about the author, Julie Powell, and how she started out as a secretary in a government office, to how she started her challenge of cooking from JC's MtAoFC and blogging her successful and not-so-successful recipes. I loved her wit and sense of humor in her writing and can't wait to read her next book.

Two thumbs up for me, but I can see where this book might not be for everyone. She uses a lot of foul/harsh language and she can be a bit on the negative side sometimes, not always a feel good book, but a good read nonetheless.

(IMHO, the movie was better than the book)

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Very enjoyable book as long as you don't mind the language. Can't wait to watch the movie to see how it stands up.

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I always say, 'People who use profanity are trying to hide their low vocabulary.' I don't know what to think about a young woman with such a potty-mouth. She can write, but I don't want to read it! One chapter was it for me. I liked sweet Amy Adams much better than I like crass and vulgar Julie Powell.

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I saw the movie first, which I never do, but read the book in any case. The protagonist is far more sympathetic in the book, and there are many reasons to love the book as a book--including different imagined scenes from Julia Child's life.

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Enjoyable book. Inspired me to really cook again!
The book and movie run true.

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enjoyed the book much more than the movie

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Great read and loved the movie. something different.

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Who doesn't know what this book is? It's a memoir of a young woman who decided to find herself by cooking every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (that's over five hundred recipes!) in just one year. Her story was made into a major motion picture starring two of the greatest actresses of our time - Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. You'd have to live under a rock to have not heard of this by now. Quite frankly, after watching and loving the film, I'd been wanting to read the book for quite some time.

It was great to go through the memoir and consider along with Julie each thing she was cooking. She'd never eaten an egg before this experiment, which gets you wondering, how does that even happen? And to be honest, I couldn't identify with Julie's disgust with bone marrow. Have you ever eaten marrow? In my family we practically fight over the bone in the ham steak so we can suck out the marrow. It's creamy and delicious! I don't see why the marrow from a cow would be that much different from that of a pig. Anyway, I was happy to read that Julie enjoyed the marrow when it finally came down to eating it.

One of the more interesting themes for me was the relation between food and sex. As a pre-teen Julie got a thrill by secretly sneaking peaks of her parent's copy of The Joy of Sex and later found flipping through her mother's copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking gave her the same thrill. When Julie and Eric started dating she used food to keep him around and to get in his pants, just as Julia used cooking to help establish a relationship with her husband, Paul. Not just in the memoir, but I think frequently in life, there is this connection between food and sex. It's hard to explain, but it makes sense - they're both delicious, delectable things to indulge in. They kind of go hand in hand somehow.

Watching the movie makes me want to get up and cook something spectacular. Maybe not aspic because, let's face it, that's kind of gross. But maybe something good like Boeuf Bourguignon. At the very least it makes me think I'll bone a duck before I die, though maybe not anytime soon. The book did not inspire me the way the movie did, but it was still a fantastic read. Julie has a gift for quirky writing and the memoir made me giggle at the right points. Props to her for blogging and then making a career out of it. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes to cook.

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Sweet book that was made into a movie..which I did not see, yet.

I thought the concept of her cooking idea was clever and very brave and it was written well. Easy, quick read.

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I liked this book about challenges both culinary and personal. I especially liked the stories about buying and cooking lobsters and how Julie learned that things didn't need to be perfect.

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Could not finish this book. Sure hope the movie is better.

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Enjoyed it as much as the movie.

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Good book! Sometimes Julie trails off into some boring topic and I catch myself having to struggle to stay interested so I just skip ahead a bit, but otherwise she's pretty witty and honest!

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I devoured this book in less than a week. I loved this book because it is about a woman's journey to find meaning in her life.

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Great book. So many funny event that led Julia to cooking. Esp the love of her man.

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I think I found the key to enjoying books that are turned into movies. Watch the movie, enjoy it for what it is, then read the bood and enjoy it MORE.
Worked with this one.

I never read blogs and had never heard of this project until my niece mentioned it. Probably due to the Texas/New York elements. Anyway, Julie's easy wit and totally unpretentious style was a delight to read. I'm on the road to finding my joy (in clay) and it never occurred to me to write about it or worse yet to blog about it, but you know, there could be some merit there. Introverted analysts like me tend to discount the journey and focus on the destination. It gave some insight into what my brother the chef went thorugh in his training. I can see the kid whose favorite meal was a chicago dog (when we still called them a vienna dog) and whole mom made dumpling footballs working to become th eexcellent chef and educator he was. Thanks julie and julia. We all need a project!

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Great story!

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I had high hopes for this book, but it really wasn't too thrilling. The only thing that saved the whole story was the humor, but otherwise this book fell flat.

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Way better than the movie, but the movie was great in itself! The book seems more to do with Julie Powell where the movie has more scenes and insite into Julia Child along with husband Paul. Both the movie and the book are well worth the time, in my opinion.

I LOVE Julia Child! (Love not LOVE! eww!) I grew up watching her then became a professional chef of 22 years running a couple of small town rural Iowa cafes after running kitchens and country clubs around the area. Julia is/was an icon.

Julie Powells writing style is like popcorn in a hot skillet! She can start a topic, run on sentence after sentence only to finish it a few pages latter. Refreshing, true to life, a joy to read. Loved the book!

Now I'm off to find her new book, Cleaved.

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good and funny read..can't wait to see the movie!

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A great read! Even better than the movie.

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Loved it!!!

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"Much of the pleasure of reading JULIE AND JULIA is in Powells' plainspoken honesty...She gives the lowdown on what it's like to really try to do something new with one's life." -- Diana Abu-Jaber, Chicago Tribune

"Thoughtful, irreverent, and occasionally hysterical..Powell writes like a culinary Chris Rock -- profane, honestg, and very funny." -- CeCe Sullivan, Seattle Times

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