Tuesday, June 29, 2010

What I'm Reading




Following Living Oprah, I started Julie Powell's newest book. It's been out for a while but I just got around to it.
This is a story of Julie's apprenticeship as a butcher but it's not just about that. Things are never about what they are about. Right?
There are many mixed reviews of this book. You can google them to read. I'm not a professional book reviewer. I can only give you my opinion.
I loved the Julie/Julia project (Julie's blog and subsequent first book). In fact, I credit Julie Powell with inspiring me to explore new things. That inspiration led me to a few freelance writing jobs, a fairly successful local blog and a new attitude about the second half of my life. So I guess some of my success as an accidental writer is because of Julie Powell.
I tried to keep this fondness for Julie from skewing my view of her second memoir. So here goes... I have never read a writer who was so brutally honest in my life.
I read the book in only a couple of days, stealing a minute to read whenever I could. All I kept thinking was, " The chicks got balls". As a writer it is incredibly hard to not want to present yourself in the best possible way. This could have been a rather boring book about butchery -which is interesting to me but, possibly, not to the masses. Instead, Julie explored and exposed almost everything about herself on the pages. She was completely honest, vulnerable, and self-deprecating. She had to know that this honesty could damage her career considering her squeaky clean image in the Julie and Julia movie yet she wrote it anyway. I finished the book over a week ago and am still thinking about it.
While I found parts of it pretty graphic and disturbing, I had to read on. Whether you end up loving Julie for her honesty or hating her for it, I think the book is worth the read.
By clicking the image above, you will be taken to Amazon if you want to purchase the book.
You can find Julie Powell at: http://juliepowell.blogspot.com/

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