cover image Cleaving

Cleaving

Julie Powell, , read by the author. . Hachette Audio, $29.98 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-60024-569-5

Powell flounders in her latest cooking-themed memoir. Trying to end an affair, the married Powell leaves town and seeks distraction in a butcher shop. She explores her obsessions with meat and with her lover—but listeners will quickly tune out. Her sarcastic inflections, flat tone, and nervous voice that worked reasonably well with Julie and Julia sound supercilious and affected here. The clunky performance cannot redeem the uninspired prose, and Powell—who compulsively cheats on her “saintly” husband—is difficult to empathize with. A Little, Brown hardcover. (Dec.)