Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Cleaving


Cleaving by Julie Powell
Ok, Julie & Julia was cute. And Julie Powell's relationship with her husband, Eric, was the cutest part of all. She portrayed him as the super supportive and encouraging husband who put up with all her breakdowns and crazy ideas with nothing but love. So when I found out that Julie cheated on him, multiple times, I had to find out why. She documents their marital problems in her follow-up to Julie & Julia, Cleaving, while also telling her story about learning the fine art of butchering meat.

Full disclosure here--I am a vegetarian and am disgusted enough by meat to not only not eat it, to steer clear of the meat department at grocery stores. So, I skipped a LOT of this book. Each time she went into incredible detail about cutting up pigs was when I skipped straight ahead. The part I did read dealt mostly with her obsessive affair and it was fascinating to see what actually drove her to do that. I could almost understand why she did it. Almost. Really I found myself screaming at her inside for being so stupid and blind to her husband's love. I'm not sure I would recommend this to anyone unless they really, really enjoy meat or have been the adultress in a relationship and can relate to her emotions.

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

So, did you like Julie & Julia the movie or book? I just watched the movie and thought about reading her books...

IrishLibrarian said...

I actually didn't read the book, just saw the movie. I would assume the book was as good as the movie, though... I hope!