Julie & Julia

This book seemed intriguing to me although I was a bit turned off by the negative reviews on Amazon. However, just then, I was browsing YouTube and randomly clicked on things and ended up watching Julie & Julia - the film - official trailer. Wow. What a coincidence that I found it!

Turns out the film is coming out right about now.. and will be in Australia on October 8. I watched the trailer and it seemed pretty entertaining to me. I don't know if it's better or worse than the book, though. I guess it would be a good feel-good romantic comedy sort of movie... although I am not sure about the romantic part since she already has a long-term partner.

This is Amazon's review/summary:

Julie & Julia is the story of Julie Powell's attempt to revitalize her marriage, restore her ambition, and save her soul by cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, in a period of 365 days. The result is a masterful medley of Bridget Jones' Diary meets Like Water for Chocolate, mixed with a healthy dose of original wit, warmth, and inspiration that sets this memoir apart from most tales of personal redemption.

When we first meet Julie, she's a frustrated temp-to-perm secretary who slaves away at a thankless job, only to return to an equally demoralizing apartment in the outer boroughs of Manhattan each evening. At the urging of Eric, her devoted and slightly geeky husband, she decides to start a blog that will chronicle what she dubs the "Julie/Julia Project." What follows is a year of butter-drenched meals that will both necessitate the wearing of an unbearably uncomfortable girdle on the hottest night of the year, as well as the realization that life is what you make of it and joy is not as impossible a quest as it may seem, even when it's -10 degrees out and your pipes are frozen.

The problem I have with all these "chick lit" autobiographical/memoir or semi-autobiographical/semi-memoir books is that they seem so... planned. Like these women go to Paris or do something for the sole purpose of 1) blogging about it and/or 2) writing a book about it, and 3) hopefully turning it into a movie about it. It feels a bit inauthentic to me. This excludes "Almost French" of course since her book was written about 10 years ago before the time when these semi-autobiographical/memoir travel books became ubiquitous.