Title: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Author: Aimee Bender
Pages: 292
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
Source: Library
GoodReads Description: The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.
The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language” (San Francisco Chronicle).
My Review:
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is not a book that will be for everyone. As you can tell from some negative reviews, it is a love or hate relationship that you will have with this book. There can be no in between. I just happened to love it.
The book begins with a 9 year old girl who can taste feelings in her food beginning with her birthday cake. Rose tastes her mother's despair in that lemon cake with chocolate frosting and her life is forever altered.
The first reason why I loved this book was Aimee Bender's character-driven writing style and beautiful prose was amazing. It hooked me in from page one.
Second, I loved this book because I felt such a connection to Rose Edelstein. How can I relate so well to a girl that has this strange curse? You should not be able to, but again, Bender's excellent writing makes that possible. Rose's character was really an exploration of the hyper-sensitive child or person, something that I am able to relate to. Joseph deals with depression to the point of suicide. And her father copes with his unknown gift/curse by avoidance. The entire family is full of dysfunction. As most families are. This book dealt with several difficult topics and managed to feel real and authentic and hauntingly magical at the same time. It is one of those books I know will stay with me.
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