The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel
by Aimee Bender
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Book Summary Information
Author: Aimee BenderEdition: Kindle Edition
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Kindle eBook
Published: 2010-05-26
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 306
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel
Book Review: The sadness lingers
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoyed this book. I think the thing that speaks most loudly about this book's impact on me is the fact that here it is, weeks after I read the book, and when I think about it, I still feel sad. In fact, I have a little bit of an unsettled feeling in my stomach right now as I write this review. The concept is original, and the vividly described feelings of the main character really stay with the reader. It's one thing to identify with a main character's feelings of sadness. It's another thing to feel her pain as she feels the pain of the loved ones around her through the food they've prepared. I really don't know another way to describe it other than to say it's very powerful and very unsettling - but at the same time, this is not a book you struggle to get through. It's a really smooth and easy read - like a light, perfect lemon cake!
Summary of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel
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).
From the Hardcover edition.
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).
From the Hardcover edition.
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