Negative Positive
Title: I was very disappointed.
Review: I thought I would LOVE this book -- I love to cook and to read about the food and cooking industries -- but I really found it boring and hard to get through. The only parts that were worthwhile were the sections on Julia Child and on the evolution of Betty Crocker. But I thought Shapiro went on WAY too long about Poppy Cannon, with too much biographical data that really didn't have anything to do with Cannon's work or her influence on cooking. Too much of the book just seemed to be laundry lists of yucky-sounding '50s recipes and failed products by the food industry. And I thought her efforts in the final chapter to draw similarities between Betty Friedan and Julia Child were bizarre. That made no sense to me at all, and it seemed to me that she only did that to end the book on a provocative, pseudo-political note. I can't help thinking the glowing reviews of this book that appeared in the media were chiefly a result of Shapiro having a lot of good connections.
Is the review positive or negative? 