Julie's Review: Julia's Child

Summary: A delectable comedy for every woman who's ever wondered if buying that six-dollar box of organic crackers makes her a hero or a sucker. Julia Bailey is a mompreneur with too many principles and too little time.  Her fledgling company, Julia's Child, makes organic toddler meals with names like Gentle Lentil and Give Peas a Chance. But before she can realize her dream of seeing them on the shelves of Whole Foods, she will have to make peace between her professional aspirations and her toughest food critics: the two little boys waiting at home. Is it possible to save the world while turning a profit? Julia's Child is a warmhearted, laugh-out-loud story about motherhood's choices: organic vs. local, paper vs. plastic, staying at home vs. risking it all. ~amazon.com

Review:  From the description of Julia's Child I thought this was right up my alley and in a way it was but in more ways it wasn't. I don't like being preached too in my books. Often enough if that is being done, I'll put the book down and not finish it, with Julia's Child though I soldiered on, I wanted to see if Julia herself would transform in the end. Did she? Yes, she did but that didn't make her more likable to me. I admired Julia for her passion about eating organic and wanting to help other mother's do the same for their children. I did feel that at times she took it a bit too far by judging other people and their choices. Just because it's right for you doesn't mean it's right for other people. Do we all judge others? Sure we do, but she's the type of person to scrutinize everything another mother does and not be very kind about it.

I can't imagine how hard it would be to start your own food business and try to get the word out there about your product, while competing with bigger companies who were more efficient. She had a great product but she had grand ideas of where she wanted to go, without having the capability of producing it. Her little company was growing faster than she could handle it.

There were aspects that I liked about the novel too. I loved her employee Marta. I thought she was funny and a good compliment to Julia's personality. I also loved Julia's husband Luke. He calmed her when she was frantic. Although I thought it did take a long time for them to have the "money" talk but I appreciated what Luke said to her.

Ms. Pinneo does have a gift for storytelling and when I thought she was going to go one way, she didn't get caught in the traditional traps. I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

I did like the fact that there were recipes in the novel as well. I'm even going to try the Mac n Cheese that was in there, it looked fairly simple. I like simple.

If you are a big advocate of organic eating, then Julia's Child definitely the book for you, especially if you are passionate about it.


Final Take: 3.25/5


Thanks to Amy @KMSPR for a copy of the book to review.