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    Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession
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    Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession
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    Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession
    Audiobook10 hours

    Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession

    Written by Julie Powell

    Narrated by Joshua Ferris

    2.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Julie Powell thought cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking was the craziest thing she'd ever do--until she embarked on the voyage recounted in her new memoir, CLEAVING.

    Her marriage challenged by an insane, irresistible love affair, Julie decides to leave town and immerse herself in a new obsession: butchery. She finds her way to Fleischer's, a butcher shop where she buries herself in the details of food. She learns how to break down a side of beef and French a rack of ribs--tough, physical work that only sometimes distracts her from thoughts of afternoon trysts.

    The camaraderie at Fleischer's leads Julie to search out fellow butchers around the world--from South America to Europe to Africa. At the end of her odyssey, she has learned a new art and perhaps even mastered her unruly heart.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateDec 1, 2009
    ISBN9781600245701
    Unavailable
    Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession

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    Reviews for Cleaving

    2.5/5

    192 ratings34 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 1/5
      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!
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      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.
    • 1/5
      I found it on the dollar rack at Barnes and Noble and I have to say I overpaid. Boring and witless, with out the Julia Child angle Ms. Powell simply can't carry a book.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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 touch 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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 1/5
      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.
    • 1/5
      Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, by Julie PowellJulie Powell's penchant for whining carries from her previous novel into "Cleaving." While reading the book, I actually felt very bogged down and depressed, especially after seeing page after page of her whining about her troubled marriage and pathetic affair. I call her affair pathetic because even after it's clear the other man doesn't want her, she stalks him, writes to him, texts him, and doesn't give up for two years (and the reader gets to hear about it *every* time she tries to contact him). Perhaps writing "Cleaving" was a form of therapy for Powell, but it's the sort of writing that should stay in a blog or diary, not in a book. I wanted to like this book. After not particularly enjoying Powell's first novel, "Julie and Julia," I had hoped that she would show something worthy of having published a second book. But "Cleaving" fell flat for me, like an unsharpened knife slicing into bread. The main subject, butchering, is only somewhat interesting, and I think the reader is overdosed on descriptions and techniques on how to break up this animal, or how to cut down that animal. My eyes started glazing over after the fifth or sixth long passage of yet another butchering story. I had read the prologue of "Cleaving" in my copy of "Julie and Julia," and it caught my attention, but for me that was probably the best part of the book. The other employees at Fleisher's are far more interesting than Powell herself, and I did enjoy reading her stories about them. However her trips to different countries are recounted in a so-so manner, including way too many experiences of men finding her attractive. Do I really need to hear that a Maasai warrior finds her pretty, after hearing that Ukrainian and Argentinian men do as well? If I were her, I certainly wouldn't want such details of my life spewed on a page, published for anyone and everyone to read. But I suppose it does take guts to publicly talk about an affair, her marriage troubles, her husband's lover, anonymous sex, etc., and her use of butchering as a way to find herself. I'm just not sure if it's good literary material; the liberal sprinkling of Buffy metaphors certainly doesn't help.I'd say get "Cleaving" out from the library if you're determined to read it, before parting with your money. 1/5.
    • 4/5
      Cleaving is the new memoir by Julie Powell, who wrote the hugely popular Julie & Julia. In this book, as stated clearly in the blurb, she writes about learning the art of butchery and also about the obsessive love affair she carries on while married. This book is going to have a hard time, not because of its flaws, but because of reader disapproval of her behavior. The reviews I've read so far have all given the book low ratings, based on what the author does. I don't think this is fair; it's like hating a prison memoir because the person in the book had committed a crime. On the other hand, Powell carved a huge readership for herself out of precisely the kind of reader who would dislike her actions. I'll be honest, I disliked her actions, but I think that that is a separate issue from what I think about her book.And it is, for the most part, quite good. It reads like a sub-titled film, starring Isabelle Huppert or Jean Paul Belmondo. Powell is carries on a love affair in front of her hurt and angry husband. When she's dumped by the object of her affection, she is sent into a tailspin of misery and cyberstalking. She's not a very nice person, but neither are the other two people involved. She decides to become an apprentice butcher and Powell has a talent for describing the art of dismemberment, tying her actions in the butcher shop to her feelings about her unravelled life. The book loses a lot of its narrative strength when she completes her apprenticeship and, finding that she still doesn't know what she wants out of her marriage, travels around in an aimless way. This part is really not very good, becoming the sort of travel memoir written by a person with plenty of money to spend, and so her solo adventure becomes one in which she has someone hired at every stage to protect her, guide her and handle all the language and cultural barriers. I'm not sure that this kind of travel has any value to the person doing it; it certainly is not worth writing about.
    • 1/5
      Cleaving is Julie Powell's followup to her bestselling memoir Julia and Julia. It is not, however, a followup in the sense that it's just as good. It's simply a memoir of the years following the publishing of her first book and let me tell you, she took one huge wrong turn.It turns out Julie's life became complicated after her first book was published, and not because she was suddenly a recognizable face on the street. No, an old flame re-entered her life. Here's the way she puts it: "I was starry-eyed and vaguely discontented and had too much time on my hands. It was exactly the wrong time for the phone call I got that summer of 2004..."And here, I'll admit, I started judging. If there is one thing I hate, it's adultery. I cannot understand how you can promise to be faithful, to love and support, to care for another person for the rest of your life, and then throw it out the window. If you fall out of love with your spouse and in love with someone else, then fine, get a divorce and move on with your life. But under no circumstances do I see why you should deceive and cheat on your spouse and then whine about it. And that's exactly what Julie did in this book.Sure, she comes up with some interesting metaphors as to how her new passion, butchery, is a lot like her life and how it's been torn apart. But really, the only reason I kept reading was because I wanted to know if she would grow up by the end of it. I'll save you the trouble: she didn't. Instead of growing a pair and filing for divorce, she bitched and moaned about how much she loved her husband, but also how much she loved her lover, and how she couldn't let go of either one of them, even if she was hurting them both. Instead, she had to dive into a butchery apprenticeship and then take a solo trip around the world. True, by the end of the trip she had grown confidence in herself and was no longer a crying, whiny mess. Instead, she and her husband came to an agreement to just "see" where life would take them. No divorce, but also no commitment to stop seeing their lovers (yes, her husband started his own affair after he learned about hers; payback is one thing, but come on!).I have nothing good to say about this memoir, and now I have nothing good to say about Julie Powell. I really liked Julie and Julia; I could understand how someone turning 30 in a dead-end job would need to reach out for some crazy goal, and I was impressed that she was able to turn that into a book deal, and I even liked how real and uncensored she seemed. And I think I'll still like that book for what it was. But this was something that not only was the opposite of what I expected, but made me angry and left me mystified. If she had done something, anything, showing that she had grown up and moved on, I could respect that. Not condone it, but at least respect that she did the right thing. I will never understand how someone can cheat on the one person they claim to love so much, and I have no respect for someone that can't realize their mistakes and make it right.1 star out of 5. I had originally scored this as a 2, but after discussing it with my husband, I realized that I was scoring it based on my own personal need to see if Julie changed her ways, not whether or not the book was worth it. While I needed to see it to the end, I cannot recommend that you do the same.
    • 2/5
      Huh. Not sure how I feel about this one except to say that it's well written and I like the way she compares her marriage to the butchering process.
    • 1/5
      Fans of Julie and Julia are typically very forgiving of the flawed, struggling Powell because they identify on some level with attaching oneself to an endeavor in order to define oneself, to strive to become something bigger or better than one's current self. Fans also tend to be Julia Child lovers who fancy the idea of cooking their way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking themselves. The cookbook itself becomes the focal point around which the memoir revolves. The quest is finite and is successfully resolved by book's end.Cleaving, however, ostensibly has a focal point in Powell's quest to learn the skills of butchery during a six month apprenticeship, but is in fact, about many unconnected things of which most readers will have little interest or sympathy. All but one reader among us this morning confessed to skimming through the butchering sections of the book as they approached midpoint. These passages were lengthy, mostly tedious explanations of various butchering tasks and cuts of meat. Passages that are so flatly delivered, so passionless that one has to wonder why Powell has decided to dedicate herself to acquiring this new skill. And she never really explains. At least as not as clearly as she details an inexplicable new insight into the character and motivations of Jack the Ripper. Really. Don't ask.Powell spends an enormous amount of time making the reader privy to the loathsome details of her disintegrating marriage, their mutual extramarital affairs, the stalking of her ex-lover, her descent into near-alcoholism, her attraction to various forms of self-degradation (I could go on but am feeling irritated again just writing this). By the time she embarks on her Elizabeth Gilbert-esque travels to experience butchering about the globe, one is likely to be wondering where the hell her editor was. What is this book about? Self-indulgence and possible mental illness is all my book group could see by the (blessed) end. The kicker for this group of women more than ready for a little girlfriend talk when we picked up the book? She ripped off the whole name reveal of Big from the final episode of Sex in the City when she reveals the name of her lover at the end. Look Julie, we will read your lackluster latest endeavor to the final page, but don't steal from one of our favorite shows. Unforgiveable.Sad. Not especially well-written. Reads like a person struggling for an encore after a successful debut. Reads like the babbling of a lost narcissist. One group member commented, "I just wanted to throw the book across my apartment when I finished." Another commented, "I am not sure why I kept reading other than the fascination of watching her building burn." I think you get the idea.
    • 4/5
      Julie Powell writes her second memoir after Julie and Julia, which I had really enjoyed. I almost didn't read this one as I had seen poor reviews. But the first one had bad reviews also, and I liked that one a lot.Julie Powell is fresh from the success of her first book and also her first affair. She has been seeing "D" for almost two years. Her husband is aware of the affair but they do not split up, at least not permanently. The story picks up as the affair is breaking up. Julie has become fascinated with butchery and is looking for an apprenticeship, which she eventually finds in a small butcher shop two hours out of the city. This eventually leads to travel to Argentina, Ukraine, and Tanzania to discover butchery in other cultures.my review: I really liked this book. However, I'm not really sure why. I don't approve of infidelity, but worse is the disrespect that Julie seems to show her husband, and he in return. She is obsessed with D, texting him constantly, though aware that he husband reads her texts. He then indulges in his own affair, though more to punish her. The fact that for the most part, they stay together during this and not discussing the affair seems insane. But having never been married, perhaps I just don't understand. Julie doesn't want to divorce Eric, her husband, as she loves him and considers him more than a soul mate. They have been together since college.I also have little tolerance for women that are obsessed with men as Julie is with D. Even after the affair ends, she continues to text him all the time, waiting for a response. I also get frustrated with people that seem to have such chaos in their lives.I also am not a huge red meat person (though I did have more than one helping of prime rib at Christmas) and I love animals. The idea of reading about the butchering of these animals is not something that would hold appeal to me.Yet, all that said, I liked the book. She is a great writer, maybe her honest portrayal of herself and her flaws won me over. And I guess I admired her commitment to such a difficult job as apprenticing as a butcher and her drive to really succeed. She also doesn't seem to rest on her laurels of her successful first book, barely even mentioning it.The end was not as finished as I would have liked, but this is someone's real life, not a novel.There are also some recipes interspersed throughout the book. Ultimately, it is the fact that she hides from nothing, whether it is her honesty with her husband about her affair, that she eats parts of meat most of us would balk at, even drinking goat's blood as part of a slaughter ritual in Tanzania, that makes me admire her or at least be able to appreciate her story.This is not a book I would recommend to everyone, it does not have universal appeal, especially if you have a weak stomach or are a vegetarian. But it is frank, honest, and well-written. One of the great things about my Kindle is that I was able to download a free sample before committing to the purchase. I recommend doing that or getting from the library.my rating 4/5
    • 4/5
      Emotionally honest account of the author's affair with a man while (just) holding her marriage together. Took me a while to get used to the gory butchering descriptions, but I did. At the end, the author achieves some hard-won insight without tying up the ends too neatly. It felt true.
    • 1/5
      a sad tale of sexual exploits and not worth finishing.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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?
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      Narcissist meets Sociopath

      If you can get past the endless self absorption and blatant disregard for her husband, the world of butchering is very interesting.
    • 1/5
      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.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      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.


    • 2/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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!
    • 2/5
      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.

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    • 1/5
      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.

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    • 1/5
      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.

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