Cleaving

This wasn't really a story. It was really just a young woman's journal being read out loud. It started out weak, then part of a story formed, but it was difficult to get past the part about the author feeling sorry for herself. And the worst was that she was very self-destructive. If you are a butcher, or love any type of raw meat with a passion, then I would guess you might like this story. Otherwise, save your time and read a real book!

Very dark and honest and I still don't think she's a literary genius, but I found I wanted to hear the next thing she had to say. Skippable if you're only interested in the butchering part.

This book had so much potential. Julie Powell's first memoir, Julie and Julia, was a book that I absolutely adored. The movie version was even fairly well done. When I heard that she'd written a second book, I was thrilled! When I saw the fairly epic subtitle (A story of marriage, meat, and obsession) my hopes for this book grew to epic proportions.

Sadly, it fell flat.

The first part of the book wasn't so bad. In fact, the parts where Julie talked about butchering and how she apprenticed at a quaint shop were absolutely fascinating. Those parts left me actually wanting to experience what she did. I don't know that I actually wanted to butcher any meat... but I certainly wanted to watch.

But the primary focus of the book was the affair that Julie had with “D.” The vast majority of the book was filled with insipid whining about the fact that he had decided he could no longer be with her because she was married and it was too hard for them to have a relationship when she was still so attached.

She whined about the loss of her lover. She whined about the strain on her marriage (she carried this affair on for two years while her husband knew about it).

Once she moved on from talking about her apprenticeship, I quickly grew bored and actually put the book down for a few weeks because I simply couldn't stomach the whining any longer.

Bottom line? The title and subtitle are far more entertaining and well written than the rest of the book.