My very first DNF post........ ending February on an irritated note

It's the last day of February, so I thought I'd do something a bit different today..... write a bit of a snarky post about a book I did not finish.   And yes, I plan to go back to my regular review posts starting tomorrow (whew!).


But I'm in a bit of a mood after attempting a re-read of a book that I had remembered liking, and that this time around, rubbed me the wrong way.   I had read Julie Powell's book, Julie and Julia, when it first came out (I remember grabbing it from the new nonfiction shelves at the library).  I remember laughing at parts, and just enjoying the book overall.  While it didn't inspire me to attempt making recipes from Julia Child, it did make me appreciate what I did like to cook, especially since at the time I read it, my kitchen was still in its pre-renovation state (I had poo-brown appliances from 1961, okay?   That's another story all by itself.....).

Meryl Streep is awesome.

I had decided to revisit this book recently.  I spent two weeks being sick with a nasty virus, and frankly, I just wanted some comfort reading.  I wanted to read books where I knew the outcome, and I knew the story.  I re-read some Maeve Binchy and Anne Perry, and picked up this book from the library.   Inspired by the recent movie (starring the most amazing and wonderful Meryl Streep), I thought to myself that this would be a great book to re-read, especially since I was feeling better (and actually had some appetite back).   


And..... something happened in between the first time reading and this recent re-read: the book sucked.  Perhaps it was my original state of mind years ago, and my state of mind this week.  Perhaps it because I had the movie firmly in mind, and the storyline in the film.  Whatever the reason, this time around, I fervently disliked the book.   It wasn't funny, and I found the author just grated on me (not unlike what happens when I use my micrograter on a lemon and accidental scrape a bit of finger, instead).  I found her tone to be off-putting, and her stories of her friends to be annoying.  I even tried stopping and re-starting a bit further into the book, thinking that maybe I just wasn't at a good part yet.   No, that didn't work, either.   I wound up being irritated and just putting the book down.   It didn't help that there was a teaser chapter from Powell's second book, Cleaving, included in the edition I checked out from the library.  In fact, that made me chafe, too -- I had read a few chapters of that book when it was published, and just plain didn't like it.


Needless to say, this experience put me off the book, although I still enjoy the film.  What I'm wondering is: what happened?   Did Meryl Streep and Amy Adams ruin the book for me?  Did I somehow miss the author's annoying tone the first time around?  Did getting rid of my poo-brown appliances and renovating my kitchen somehow make me identify less with this book?   Not sure.   I was happy to put this book down and pick up something else, which I'm completely enjoying (a new book ....  expect a review soon). 


Has this happened to anyone else?