Mastering the Art of French Cooking...

I finished this book a few days ago. As you may see and probably already know is that it is now also a movie. Have you seen it? Or have you read this book? Or both? Well I purchased this book to read after I'd seen the movie because I was intrigued and wanted to see how accurate the movie really was. And it was actually pretty well in line with the book. But I'll compare these abit later - I'll start with commenting on the book.

The author - Julie Powell. I find her quite a rough character but in an endearing kind of way. She can be quite crude at times but at the same time funny. I found myself giggling at her antics or the way she described some things. It was very amusing. I also found myself asking - 'Is life in America really like that? Eating dinner/tea at 10 or 11 at night? That would never happen here, well not in my circle of family and friends anyway. Maybe in the cities? Maybe a Sydney or Melbourne lifestyle is like this but I'm a country girl through and through and, although I have had tea late before, it has rarely or never been that late. I can't imagine sitting down at 11pm and choof down a great serving of Boeuf Bourguignon swiftly followed by Bavarois á l'Orange for dessert and then whisk yourself off to bed. I seriously don't know how they do it - or how Julie and Eric did it! I often see the movies where the characters book a dinner date for 9pm. I just thought it was a 'movie' thing but no, apparently it really happens - as I have discovered in this book.

What I like about this book is that it is not censored. Julie is just Julie. No fluffy 'can't write that in a book' stuff. It just says what she thought, what she said, how she felt, what she did and how she did it. No frills. Just Julie, in the raw! There was alot of things you could identify with and situations that Julie went through that you could see yourself in aswell. I liked that.

And now for the movie...

If you saw this movie first and then read the book, I will warn you that you may be a tad surprised at the 'real' Julie as opposed to the 'acted' Julie. I feel that the 'movie Julie' was slightly too gentle and 'together' than the 'real' Julie you meet in her book. Don't get me wrong, Amy Adams is a great actor and I do like what she did in the role of Julie but in comparison to the book, I found she was the 'cute' version of Julie. No offense to the real Julie Powell because I think she is great and I really admire what she did - Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 365 days - sounds like fun! Watching the movie and reading her book has got me into the world of blogging! And I'm loving it!

But in the end, this is my opinion. Why don't you see what you think? Read the book and watch the movie. Or maybe you would rather only do one or the other. I admire those people who can do that. I am too curious. I need to see if the movie or the book was better and then choose which one I liked best and stick to that! Let me know what you do and what you thought about either or both. 7.5/10

Happy Reading (or watching)
Anna