Overall I thought this book was funny and entertaining. It was interesting to read about Julie's experience cooking all those crazy French dishes!! I don't think I could kill a live lobster or eat organ meats (especially brains! yuck) but it was definitely entertaining to hear about her experiences doing it. My one complaint about the memoir genre is that sometimes I feel it gives the author license to whine incessantly about her life which Julie did do in this book....however she was funny about it albeit sometimes pretty annoying. I did watch the movie and I thought it was much better than the book which is unusual. The movie was 50% about Julia Child's life which I loved. Even the little 'snippets' about Julia Child in the book weren't very interesting or effective....the book wouldn't have changed much without them. However, if she would have focused more on Julia Child's bio/story the book could have been greatly improved.