I finished My Life In France about 2 weeks ago and I have a "review" of it. I wanted to read it after seeing the movie Julie & Julia, which was based on the book of the same name. I didn't write out anything formal, just a list of likes and dislikes. Here it is:
Likes:
- She gave such detailed descriptions of the places she and her husband, Paul, lived and the food they enjoyed that I ached to be there, both living where they did and eating the delicious food they did. (I should note that I majored in French in college, but I've never been there even though I really want to go; also I love to eat.)
- Julia has a great writing style. It feels like your listening to a good friend tell you all this stuff instead of reading a book written for the general public, i.e. strangers. This may be b/c her letters to friends and family were used as source material, but it was a good way to put the book together.
- This is a great intro to Julia and her cooking. If you're like me and you've only seen snippets of her shows or the SNL spoof w/ Dan Aykroyd, then this gives wonderful insight to her life before she was famous. It's particularly interesting to lean how humble she was and how little confidence she had in her abilities b/c she was remarkably talented in so many ways.
- This is probably a given, but if you've seen the movie and wanted more about Julia and Paul, this book provides it. I actually found Julia's story more interesting than Julie Powell's.
- Julia was such a happy person that some of her happiness "rubbed" off on me and made me happy while I was reading this book. 
Dislikes:
*Please note that these aren't reasons not to read the book, just a few things that bothered me about it more than anything else.
- Ok, 1st a little explanation. The book was published in 2006, but Julia passed away in 2004 so her grand-nephew (Alex Prud-Homme) had to finish the book w/o her help. I read some editorial reviews saying that you can't tell where Julia left off helping and where Alex took over, but I disagree. The last quarter of the book (maybe more) was kind of boring w/ too many descriptions of meals w/o the enthusiasm from the earlier part of the book. I don't mind hearing about what they ate (I love it in fact), but earlier in the book, you'd get other tidbits, like the history of the dish or the background of the chef, etc. Also, there seemed to be too much about the final details of publishing Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 2. This part was pretty much a rehash of the publishing of the 1st volume.
- This is a true nit pick and given that Julia died before the book was published it could have been that her grand-nephew didn't want to/feel comfortable/etc. changing the title, but I found the book's title a little misleading. I expected it to center on her life in France. I mean, duh? Right? But in truth she and Paul leave France 187 pages in and don't live there year round again, ever. They build a house in Provence, but they're only there a few months out of the year at that point in their lives; and there's no fun descriptions of the locals or the nearby towns/villages as there were in the earlier half of the book. I can't help but wonder if that's about when the grand-nephew took over.
Over all, I really enjoyed this book and think that it would make a great book club selection.
PS: I tried reading Julie Powell's Julie & Julia and was kind of disappointed. To be fair, I didn't get very far, but I didn't like Ms. Powell's writing style. I guess I also thought it would be more like the movie. I've bookmarked her blog that the book was based on and plan on giving it a try eventually.
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