Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

Well.... I haven't written about this book yet even though I finished it a week ago, because I am not sure how I feel about it.

First let me say that I read the book AFTER I saw the movie. Very good thing. I adored the movie. It was 2 hours of bliss. I am glad I saw the movie first because I think I liked the book better than I would have had I not an image of Julie Powell via Nora Ephron's movie.

But this is a book blog, not a movie blog, so I'm just gonna get to the book. I love the idea. Julie Powell's cooking project is very interesting and fun to read about. But the rest of Julie? Not so much. She's kind of a big whiner. I think it is because she wanted to be an actress and ended up a secretary. She clearly believed herself better than her job. I understand that most people don't aspire to secretary-hood in their lives, but I just wonder why Julie thought she was SO awesome that she was having a life crises over the fact that she didn't like her job. She had her health, a nice husband who put up with her, income enough to buy all the stuff needed to make all Julia Childs' French food, friends, and family.

I know it is probably not fair to criticize a blogger/autobiographer for making something all about them, but somehow, Julie Powell did it in a very obnoxious way. I have read TONS of books by people writing about themselves, and Julie Powell did not succeed in the way others have. The best comic "blogger" style writing is self-deprecating. Take the late, Great Erma Bombeck. A really smart, clever woman, but she was always the butt of her own jokes in her books in a way that made you want to be her daughter, sister, next door neighbor, etc. Julie admits faults but at the same time seems to either not believe them or feel she's justified in them. I was pretty put off by her.

I know I may have readers of all political stripes here on this blog, so I am not in the business of making politics part of the discourse but I have to say one thing--Julie Powell, a self-avowed Democrat working for a government agency during the Bush administration, was very hateful and nasty toward Republicans. She made snide comments about the GOP as though it is common knowledge they have no style of dress, enjoy being mean or cruel, generally making them her personal punching bag on numerous occasions in the book. It's obviously a-OK for Powell to love her political views and think she's right, but I don't understand why a political ideal or view makes a person automatically horrible and unworthy of respect. I would be just as annoyed if she had been a Republican dissing Dems, it was a glaring example of Julie Powell's inherent unpleasantness. She even had an aunt in the book that she admitted to loving very much but STILL harped on the fact that aunt was a Republican as though that was like admitting that the aunt was also a criminal or something. Totally uncalled for and obnoxious. I guess given Powell's attitude, I should just assume she wouldn't want the likes of me reading her books, and therefore if I'm offended it's my own fault?

Whatever. Point is, I didn't like the book very much even though I was very excited to read it. The cooking passages were entertaining whenever she wasn't whining about something while writing about cooking.

I do, however, have Julia Child's memoir, My Life in France, on hold at the library and I dearly hope that it is NOT a disappointment.