Customer Reviews

Made From Scratch: A Memoir

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I understand why the reviews on Made From Scratch: A Memoir are so divergent - Sandra Lee's life story is pretty remarkable and inspirational (worthy of a high rating), but the book itself is poorly written (deserving of a low rating). Made from Scratch was a quick read for me, and it seemed like it was written quickly too (confirmed by Lee towards the end, when she mentions that her publisher gave her 6 weeks to write the book).

The book is no more than a cursory overview of her life, but interesting at that. For example, Lee spends about 61 written pages covering the first 18 years of her life. The brevity with which she covers each phase or facet of her life is both a blessing and a curse - it is a fast read, but often lacks key details or explanations. The failure of her first business, for instance, was "explained" in literally one paragraph.

Also, each chapter of the book tends to focus on only one aspect of Lee's life at a time. So if a particular chapter was devoted to her business, then there were few details, if any, about her family/personal life at that time. Those details were rarely fleshed out later. I found myself wondering where Lee's parents and siblings were at certain points of her success. And I questioned why Lee's beloved grandmother moved from L.A. to Phoenix when Lee moved back to L.A. But the book didn't provide answers.

I like Sandra Lee, and she seems well-intentioned. Many parts of her life story are instructive. For these reasons, I give the book 3/3.5 stars overall.

I have the audio presentation of this book and was amazed after I heard her story. Just NOT with the narrator. It seems a bland dish when transfered to the audio medium

I am NOT a big fan of Sandra Lee and her semi Homemade show on the Food Network. On Television, She seemed a bit too ritzy in her style and delivery of her show. I am a big fan of Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay and Paula Dean...all seem down to earth in their TV presentations. However Ms Lee's TV presenation seem too nice like she was hiding something. Note the camera never lies!

And neither does the audio microhone...In listening to her audio presenation narrated by her, I was right and she was hiding something...a lot of pain in growing on which is presenated here. She came from an abusive mother and unloving father. She had to raise her sisters and brothers, since her mother suffered Mental Illness. In the beginning, she and her sister was raised by a loving Grandmother who was both a mentor and a loving parent figure. It is a wonder how she survived the way she did. She took her life and became a successful businesswoman.

Now the bad point, Sandra Lee may be a good on air chef, but she lacks a strong audio voice needed to relay this story to audio. Her voice lacks emotions verbal content, basicly it seems bland and tasteless.

However when she does emote the text, it recants of her grandmother's death and funeral. It is an amazing story she unravels, but she seem not narrate well into her own life story. Something that seems so inspirational comes out with low impact.

I will say this, she should have pushed her over-the-top TV persona onto the audio medium...and she didn't!

I rate this four stars because of the intriging content. I hope it does inspire many abused women and children to grow and succeed like she did

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

Ms. Lee's account of her life is a rambling, incoherent mess. Even though her childhood was admittedly far from idyllic, her romanticized tale of life events leads the reader to wonder whether this is actually the manuscript of a life or just some idealized concoction stemming from time spent reading too many Danielle Steel novels. Not all of the problems with this book can be thoroughly attributed to Ms. Lee, however, and should rest in part with Laura Morton, whose adolescent style of writing is embarrassing and ultimately painful for the reader. Despite the sketchy time line of events in her life, one thing becomes painfully clear as you read this book: Sandra Lee's story telling and writing skills are completely on par with her celebrity cheffing skills.

I watch Sandra Lee's show on the Food Network every weekend, and I was anxiously awaiting this book's release. What a disappointment it was. I think my 12-year old son can write better than this; facts didn't match up, and the writing was just terrible. Her story, if it's true, is a sad one, but unfortunately, it read more like a comedy than the tragic tale I think Chef Lee thought she'd make money spinning.

Wait for the movie on Lifetime. I'm sure there will be one.

I read the book in about five hours. It started out rough with very little literary quality to the book. Within the first ten pages, I had found many grammatical errors. As the book progressed, I could empathize with her the hardships she lived through in basically raising her siblings. However, I found it odd that she didn't seem to be too concerned about her siblings once she moved to Wisconsin and through her adult years. Parts of the book did not seem very credible or maybe just a little too embellished.

My biggest difficulity in reading this book was the many grammatical errors. I kept getting distracted by them and even irritated. The book was also so full of cliches that I found the writing very mediocre.

At the end of the book, I realized that the book had been written in six weeks. They started in May and by the middle of November, they were on bookshelves. It seems like lightening speed to write and publish a book in six months. Although an editorial team and a writer was involved in this book, the book appeared to be more of a rough draft. I would question what they did in getting this book ready for publishing! The book stated that the writer had also written Melissa Ethridge's book. If so, I would be extremely embarrassed. I believe the publisher did not do the book justice. It seems like they were more interested in getting a book published before Christmas then the quality of the book.

I have never read a published book with so many basic grammatical errors and such poor writing.

Sandra Lee did attain success through plain hard work, and I admire her for that; however, the writing of this book would not be one of her top successes.

I was shocked as I tried to wade through this book. It is so poorly written that it is almost literally impossible to get through it. Clearly it wasn't edited, as misspellings and punctuation errors go unfixed and grammatical errors made entire sentences incomprehensible. Sandra also could have used a dictionary, as the book is littered with inappropriate adjectives (some ended up being very funny) that I am sure she didn't know the meaning of. I found the fact that Sandra claims to have been an English major and a writer for her college paper to be an especially delicious irony.

Looking past the breathtakingly bad writing, the story itself is incoherhant, vacuous, contradictory and shamelessly self-aggrandizing. It's hard to follow and the facts (dates, people, etc) change so much you feel like you are wading through quicksand.

The gist seems to be that she had a hard upbringing (I think) and her mother didn't give her her used curler set. But one day she read a Danielle Steele book and eveything became clear. Then she became obsessed by money, vacationed at St. Tropez with her aged husband who didn't understand her, and invented recipes using canned and processed food. After a rough childhood where she was forced to eat crappy food, she ends up being a childless millionaire who has tricked other people into eating crappy food so that she can make money. Is there a lesson to be learned there?

A semi-coherent offering from the Semi-Ho. Poorly written, badly punctuated, unfocused content, and Way! Too! Many! Exclamation! Marks!
Any resemblance of the timeline presented in this memoir, to that presented in Food Network's "Chefography" are purely incidental, and should be consumed for entertainment purposes only.
Keep it grammatical. Keep it focused. Keep it semi-coherent. Mostly, keep away from this book.

This book has such a juvenile quality to it. The writing is terrible and the story doesn't even flow that smoothly. I like her TV show and was intrigued to read the book, I am glad that I checked it out of the library and didn't pay any money for it. Very Disappointing.

I tried to go into Sandra Lee's memoir Made from Scratch with an open mind. Sure, her show on the Food Network isn't my thing due to her overuse of seasoning packets, hot glue guns, and booze, but she does have fans and seems like an interesting person.

Unfortunately, this memoir was a horrible mistake. The Food Network star seems to have completely revised her life story from the Chefography aired on FN this year, making the tragedies in her life far worse and the triumphs far better. The grammar and punctuation is a pure nightmare. There are more run on sentences than a second grade book report. Add in far too many exclamation points and random song lyrics and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. And to think all of these mistakes made it through with a credited ghost writer helping her out.

Chef Lee reveals in the memoir that she only had six weeks to get this book ready for publication. Sadly, that shows in all the wrong ways. What could have been a very insightful look into a woman who has time and time again turned a lack of resources into a truly great American success story reads almost like a parody of a rags to riches tale.

I was disappointed with this book. I am not sure she is telling the whole story about her life either. I like her a lot and I definitely like some of her recipes and for the most part, people are too hard on this woman. I was disappointed with the book because I believe there's a lot she didn't say. A much better read is Paula Deen's book PAULA DEEN: IT AIN'T ALWAYS ABOUT THE COOKIN'.