Not at all like her 1st book. Dark and moody and I didn't expect that. More of her sex life instead of being a butcher. . . well, I guess she butchered her sex life, marriage and relationships. So, yes, she cleaved. ( )

This memoir would have received 4 stars if it either A) didn't include butchering, B) focused exclusively on the love triangle and marriage resolution, or C) integrated the two storylines seamlessly.

This book reminded me of Emily Griffin's Love the One You're With. The obsession, the marriage, the mess. I wanted more of this tale.

The problem for me was the butchering parts were so well written they eclipsed the love story.

Overall the book was not as horrible or as self-absorbed as the reviews I read, but I also didn't read Julie & Julia as a comparison. ( )

Uncomfortable memoir, I think we would all feel better if she could have fictionalized this. ? I want to give her back her anonymity. Certainly readable and plenty of meaty recipes. The upstate NY artisinal butcher's shop sounds idyllic. ( )

1. I don't really want to know such detail about butchery, because it's kind of gross.

2. The author is seriously messed up.

3. I feel sorry for her family and anyone who knows her, because who wants to read such horrible stuff about someone?

4. The main reason I read this book is that the library summer reading program has a "food" theme, so I get a raffle ticket for books that have something to do with food. I'd better win something good! ( )

I hate bad mouthing authors, it is an unspeakably difficult thing to write a book, let alone one that exposes yourself to the audience ... yet ... Julia has demonstrated that this is not the case and written ... well, it's not a book, it is a really long blog post.

She provides a glimpse into a life that is falling apart and interspersed with recipes and her trying to reclaim some glory or validation from a past achievement that was in itself only amazing because of the shoulders she stood upon by entering a world of butchery.

What makes it worse is that neither story is related by anything other than the fact that she lived the two at the same time. She is not strong in either scenario. She shows no sign of strength or empowerment with her affair, her failing marriage or in her new career. Her recitals of the sex she is exploring and apparently enjoying is as flaccid as her description of her sausage making.

The fact that it is randomly interspersed with recipes doesn't offer it any respite as most are, at best, uninspired.

I struggled through this book. I should, in hindsight, have stopped at the second chapter and composted the paper instead. ( )

Sometimes I wonder if people do really shitty things with their lives just so they can write a mediocre memoir about it. As opposed to “A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession”, the subtitle should really just be “A Story of Obsession”. I’ll admit that I spent close to 80% of this book just feeling embarrassed for Julie Powell. While the other 20% is deliciously precise and intelligent writing with evocative descriptions of the art of butchery and its subtleties, this is entirely lost to her senseless ravings over her sleazy, sadistic lover and her inability to act like a grown woman. ( )

This is a bravely told, unblinkingly honest look at a marriage in trouble. Ms. Powell allows an extremely intimate look into her personal life. After the success of her blog, her book, and her movie, Julie Powell reconnects with an old college flame she never got over.

To her dismay, she engages in an affair with this other man. She still loves her husband, but she also loves this other man. Unwilling to let either go, Julie is forced into a breakup with D, but never stops having feelings for him. All at the same time, she is pursuing an obsession with butchery. Apprenticed at a butcher in upstate New York, Julie is learning the art of breaking down an animal into its component parts. Will she be able to heal her marriage and herself? ( )

Kind of a let-down after Julie and Julia, especially if you thought the author was delightful after watching Amy Adams in the movie version. Graphic butchery scenes, raw and somewhat unexpected sex and infidelity, a touch of self pity. Certainly open and honest, but not an especially enjoyable read. ( )

Don't read this book if:
1) you're squeamish, a vegetarian, or a card-carrying PETA member. The descriptions of butchery get pretty graphic.
2) you'd like to believe that life after Julie & Julia was all kittens and roses. After her first book was published, the author's life pretty much went to pot [spoiler alert!:] - manic depression, alcoholism, infidelity, and even dabbling in a little male prostitution.


( )

Our book club read Julie and Julia and I suggested this as a follow-up. So I got a side dish of public humiliation along with my disappointment.

The portions that are about butchery and the butcher shop are interesting. And some of the parts about her relationship with her husband are ... beautiful. Scary. Raw. (Full credit for honesty: she isn't holding anything back.)

But.. about this affair? With a man whom she continues to pursue, sext, purchase expensive gifts for A YEAR AND A HALF AFTER HE TELLS HER IT'S OVER AND STOPS RESPONDING TO HER MESSAGES??? On the bright side, I felt so sane after reading this book. I've rarely felt so utterly normal in my entire life. ( )

Oh Julie Powell, how you shocked me with this book. I was expecting a memoir along the lines of "How I learned to butcher animals...much like my experiment of french cooking"....the butchery was the least interesting part of this book. What makes this book so fascinating is Julie's relationships. With her friends, family, and her very personal relationships. I couldn't put the book down. I can't wait to read her next one! ( )

Let me preface this by saying that I did like Julie & Julia, not because I loved her character but because I loved the foodie talk and recipes. Julie has always been a whiner, but in this last book she was sweet when she wasn't whining, at least relatively compared to this new book. So it threw me.

Cleaving surprised me. Not in a good way. Clearly I'm not meant to be a chef, because all the detailed butcherspeak in this one almost made me sway towards vegetarian. That aside, I thought her descriptions and metaphors with this subject were well written. If I had any inclination to butcher this would have been the book for me. Well, parts of it anyway. The small part that was actually talking about being a butcher. The whole rest of the book went on and on and ON about her sort of maybe not really could be disintigrating marriage because of her affair and then after her husband finds out his consequent affair, and both of their startling abilities to live together without talking about either.

I guess I can say I admire Julie for her glaring honesty. I don't know of many people who could write like that and make their own lives so incredibly out there in your face, all the bad, actually more than the good. And I did like the fact she seemed older; everything wasn't so black and white, it wasn't a fairytale ending, things happen that you can't control and can't fix. So - I don't know how to rate the book exactly. It definitely made some sort of impression. ( )

This book was possibly the worst thing I read in a very very long time. But the descriptions on the art of butchery were the only reason I kept thru it. Julie P really does a massive overshare. I feel like her editor did a pretty poor job of making the book a more complete whole. I can see how the editor was bullied into leaving the bits in that did not help the book. I mean the concept of "this is her 2nd book and she's famous" probably pushed them to leave it whole when they very much should have cut it down to a much mroe manageable book. It could have been a much tighter, more focused book that mentioned her adultery and her marriage troubles. Instead I felt it was 2 books that were zippered together. Yes it worked, but no it shouldn't have been done.

The concept of butchery and finding your way thru another world view is admirable. I respect her for trying it. Food and how it comes to my plate is very important to me.. I just wished this book had focused more on that and less of cringingly graphic details of a person who needs psychiatry more than she needs to blurt out her sexual needs thru her novel.

I have no issue with polyamory, but I feel that she spent a huge part of this book not trying to be an adult and learn what is truly going on in her life and instead became this obsessive sexual addict.

Lastly I listened to this book as an audiobook. I feel that having her read it was possbily the only choice, but also a poor one. I find that she was not as professional as others I have heard read audiobooks. I could hear her turning pages. I also did not appreciate hearing the complete obsessive lust in her voice. I would rather it be an more impartial reader. ( )

Like the rating says, I really liked this book. Dropped a star because sometimes the slangy-ness was a bit much for me. I saw the Julie & Julia movie, but hadn't read the book, when I spotted this on the new books shelf at the library and grabbed it on an impulse.

I'm trying to encapsulate what I liked about this book, and it's honestly a bit difficult to express. As far as the narrative technique, the switching back and forth between the technical butchery bits and the personal story really worked for me. Otherwise? I'm just going to leave it at: I really liked it. ( )

I had hoped for the same excitement that I found in Julie and Julia. I like the way Julie Powell it was a good book. But (as she predicted) I was disappointed when reading about her relationship. She even tells you that she wrote as she thought / remembered so it may be choppy and it was.
But I loved learning more about butchering and her world travels. And when she writes another book I will read that one too. ( )

I liked Julie and Julia, the author's first book, but it was hard to separate that from the blog it was based on. For that matter, even though the book went beyond what the blog had included, it was hard to avoid the fact that it was a derivative work. (Which is not to sell it short. Powell's voice is strong... and was sadly lacking from the film adaptation, which I otherwise liked well enough.) What would happen if Powell set out to write a book as a book from the start? Could she pull it off?

It turns out she could. This is way better than the last one. Somehow Powell manages to combine information about butchering animals, an account of her wrestling with her marriage and extramarital affairs, a travel narrative, and over a dozen recipes, and make it all flow together naturally. Probably not for vegetarians, but otherwise it's a page-turner. ( )

Well, I did like Mrs. Powell's first book. I liked her original voice and I was hoping to find more of the same in her second book. Although, the voice is still there I couldn't get over her choice of topics. There were some interesting parts such as her butchery apprenticeship and her travels abroad. However, the main focus of this book is the authors love life and I could have certainly done without that part.

It's one thing what two people in a marriage -in the privacy of their own home- do or don't do. But to put all that dirty laundry out there just seems wrong to me. The author cheats on her loving husband, and then proceeds to humiliate him by sharing every little intimate detail of her affair with the whole world. If this had been a novel it may have been acceptable. But throughout the whole book I kept feeling bad for her husband, who -thanks to his author wife- will never be able to fully forget this whole ordeal. Why would you do something like that to your so-called soulmate??? That's a funny way of showing someone you care. And don't expect to find a "moral of the story" or some kind of conclusion at the end. There is none. ( )

I found it on the dollar rack at Barnes and Noble and I have to say I overpaid. Boring and witless, without the Julia Child angle Ms. Powell simply can't carry a book. ( )

I'm on page four. I already don't want to put it down. Carol Ziogas is right. This book is the perfect read for me right now. ( )

I just finished Cleaving, and in an effort to discover whether Julie and Eric divorced, I hit on this website. I have to weigh in. I enjoyed Cleaving as much as Julie and Julia. In her new book, Powell combined the personal, culinary, and travelogue in appropriate measure. The only thing that put me off was her description of an anonymous sexual encounter, but I realized that was the stylistic equivalent of the act itself. I have been a vegetarian for long periods of my life and aspire for spiritual and political reasons to avoid beef altogether. That said, I think Powell’s intimate connection with the animals she butchered justifies her eating their flesh more than the mindless consumption most of us are guilty of. Powell’s detailed description of her emotional life was either very brave or just plain egomaniacal, but it made for interesting reading. A minor quibble is that I would’ve liked more recipes, as in Ruth Reichl’s books. As I haven’t tried any of Powell’s yet, I can’t compare their relative yumminess. ( )

This book had a lot of elements and details that were very dull to me, most notably the details about butchering meat. Oh, and recipes. I'm not keen on books that are intended to be read cover to cover including recipes though I will at least recognize that the recipes in here could actually be read as part of the book, with the instructions being conversational and fitting in with the rest of the book. For me, the portion of the book about the apprenticeship in the butcher shop was just too long and detailed. Conversely, the travel portion that comes afterward seemed cut short, with Julie mentioning she was on her way to Japan for a few days but not going into it. In her acknowledgments, she thanks the editor who convinced her that there could be such a thing as too much information -- I would not have wanted to read any earlier drafts containing more information on butchery on on Julie's sexual affairs than this version did! I'm sure it still contains too much information for many readers.
This was a tough read not just because of all the description about cleaving meat, but also because of Julie's baffling behaviour, having an affair, becoming obsessed and stalker-esque about her lover when he breaks things off with her, having anonymous sex with dominant strangers on occasion... it was hard to relate to, though I suppose it is all part of the human experience and it was at the very least intriguing (if not downright baffling) to read along and try to understand. The ending was nice. On that basis, I am glad I stuck with the book and got to read that warm but not unrealistic ending. ( )

As a general rule I don't write reviews of books I didn't finish. But I hated this book enough that I'm breaking that rule. I was actually surprised by just how much I disliked this book because I quite enjoyed Powell's first book, Julie & Julia. Apparently a lot of other people did too because her publishers gave her a deal for a second book. But perhaps that was a premature decision because it seems like Powell doesn't know how to write a book without a gimmick behind it. The gimmick for her first book was cooking every recipe in Mastering the Art of French cooking. It worked. The gimmick for Cleaving was working in a butcher shop. It didn't work.

Also it seems that Powell isn't as adept at writing books as she is at writing blog posts. Julie & Julia started out as a series of blog posts that were later turned into a book. All of Julie's cuteness and snarkiness translated well from her head to her blog then later to her book. Of course she didn't know that her humble blog would one day become a book, so that certainly affected her writing process. Unfortunately when she set out to write a manuscript, knowing it would become a book, she lost a lot of her charm. It was kind of like a kid who tries to be cute. The very act of trying kills the cuteness.

Then we have the adultery. I knew when I picked this book up that it contained adultery, but I think I was anticipating more of a little slip up, perhaps some remorse and self-reflection. I wasn't anticipating a marriage where both partners treat each other with so little respect that they don't even try to hide their affairs. It made my stomach churn even more than the grizzly butchery descriptions.

Not only is this book not worth finishing, it's not worth picking up in the first place. ( )

two big reasons why I shouldn't have liked this book:
1. I'm vegetarian and there are a few digs in there towards us non meat eaters -- well beyond the fact that this is a book that goes into graphic detail about cutting up animals.
2. I'm not a fan of whiny females -- having her constantly pining for and bombarding a man with emails and texts that go unanswered-- Its crazy, sad and a serious lack of respect and pride for oneself.

It is engaging though... like watching a really bad reality TV show, and frankly its a nice self esteem book for everyone else, sort of a money+fame does not equal happiness. I can admire her for airing her dirty laundry so frankly for the world to see. It was a fun novel to read. ( )

This book is a disaster! It is perhaps the most self-indulgent, smug, repulsive memoir that I have ever stomached (barely). I'm not sure which was worse: the gross-out descriptions of pig innards or the gratuitous, adulterous sex. I didn't come away from this book feeling that I learned anything. ( )

Julie Powell's life is falling apart and it is ALL HER FAULT. She's cheating on her husband with a man she previously cheated on him with in college. She falls in love with the man and even considers leaving her husband for him, even as the lover pulls away from her and stops returning her calls. As the book progesses, she continues to pull away from her loving and supportive husband and desperately and needily clings to the lover, stalking him and purchasing $300 french scarves for him even after things are broken off. Seeking the same thrill she gets with the lover, D, she engages in anonymous sex encounters that leave her hollow and angry, sending D text messages about what he made her do.

Julie (I feel comfortable calling her Julie rather than Ms. Powell since her name was in her first book, and after all she describes her sex life very vividly, so we can afford to be a little familiar) also does some butchery in t his book. But it's almost an afterthought. As one of the many who read Julie and Julia and ended up loving the bits about Julia and the bits about food, but HATING Julie, this book takes it to the nth degree. I would have loved to read more about the butchery. I wanted to be a butcher for a large chunk of my childhood, at the age when the other girls planned on being ballerinas. I did NOT care to read more about how she leaves her blackberry lying around with sexy text messages that she refuses to delete so that her husband can read them. I don't want to read about her being in love with one man, but refusing to even contemplate divorcing another.

The whole time, Julie admits her failings with unflinching honesty. Normally, this would be a good thing in a memoir, but with Julie, she admits shocking things as if she is daring you to judge her. Her grandmother was an alcoholic, and Julie drinks at least two glasses of wine every night, turning to more alcohol the moment she is angry or the relationship is on the rocks. She talks in Buffyisms and describes her "special" oneness with her husband, and seems to think she is unique, as if EVERY COUPLE EVER didn't feel that way about their spouse, having a secret shorthand language, spouting pop culture quotes and knowing them instantly from context. It is not special.

Mostly, I think Julie treats the reader the same way she treats Eric. She brandishes her faults and shortcomings, daring us to judge her, saying things first so that we cannot wound her. Then, as she confesses and breaks down, she truly just wants us to absolve her. She leaves her blackberry around BEGGING Eric to discover the affair, and riles him up, hoping that he will finally break and force her to do penance for what she has done, end up forgiving her since she cannot forgive herself. I do not want to be involved, I don't want to absolve her. ( )