Julie and Julia (Powell) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
If this all sounds sort of sitcom-y, it's because Powell has clearly taken cues from Sex and the City and its chick-lit, chick-TV ilk, ... [which is] not a good way to realize the genuine literary potential of the Julie/Julia Project. When she's focused on the cooking itself, Powell shows signs of being one of our better, loopier culinary thinkers, more in the iconoclast mode of M. F. K. Fisher than the rhapsodic, sun-dappled vein of Saveur magazine at its most-perfect-peach fetishizing.
David Kamp - New York Times


Toward the end of the book, unfortunately, Powell's descriptions of the journalists who get interested in the Julie/Julia Project begin to overwhelm the project itself…Still…Powell is offbeat, eccentric and never too self-serious. Moreover, she understands something important. In an era when our bosses expect us to spend our lives at the office, she understands that life can't be all about your job. In an era when hostesses are praised for the food they picked up at Zabar's, she understands that there is something glorious and elemental in cooking. She has introduced ritual and meaning into an ordinary life. Not everyone will find her ritual and meaning with Julia Child, of course, but this book will inspire and encourage readers to find it somewhere.
Lauren F. Winner - Washington Post


Powell became an Internet celebrity with her 2004 blog chronicling her yearlong odyssey of cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.... Occasionally the diarist instinct overwhelms the generally tight structure and Powell goes on unrelated tangents, but her voice is endearing enough that readers will quickly forgive such lapses.... [F]unny, sharp-tongued but generous writing.
Publishers Weekly


[V]ery funny...but listeners should beware...[of] a hearty smattering of the "f" word, nor is it a dignified tribute to Child. In fact, the strength of the author's humor resides in her blunt, irreverent tone and mordant descriptions of meals consisting of unconventional ingredients such as kidneys, brains, and homemade jelly boiled from calves' hooves.... [An] entertaining memoir —Dawn Eckenrode, Daniel A. Reed Lib., SUNY at Fredonia
Library Journal


Powell is a softy at heart, appreciating Child because, she says, Child "wants you to remember that you are human, and as such are entitled to that most basic of human rights, the right to eat well and enjoy life." Powell clearly enjoyed hers, with all its madness and pleasures. Indulge in this memoir of marrow and butter, knowing there is always a bitter green to balance the taste.
Kirkus Reviews