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The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel
written by Aimee Bender
Studio : Doubleday
by Doubleday
Release Date : 2010-06-01
Publisher : Doubleday
Released : 2010-06-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780385501125
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 146 reviews)
List Price : $25.95
Our Price : $14.95
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ISBN13: 9780385501125
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Condition: New
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Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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Product 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). |
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Well written and intense |
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As the younger sister of a brilliant brother, a successful lawyer, and a smart beautiful mother, the idols in her life have a long way to fall. On her 9th birthday, she tastes sadness in her mother's cake for the first time, and all her mother can say is that she's fine. The novel follows Rose through childhood and early adulthood as she grapples with her need for genuineness in a world where real emotions are too powerful for words. |
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Great Kindle Read! |
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This was a wonderful book that kept me enthralled while on recent business in Hong Kong and on that 20+ hour plane ride back to the US.....Aimee Bender's writing is wonderful and fresh, so original and the story is unique. Yes there are some "magical" elements, but if you go with the author and suspend everyday beliefs, just let the words and phrases wash over you. It is definitely one of the best books I read in 2010! |
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A missed opportunity ... |
I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't. I seem to be in the minority, however, so perhaps I am missing something.
The first half of this book has an interesting premise -- a young girl (Rose, age 9) suddenly discovers she can taste the inner emotions of the person who cooked whatever she is eating -- and does a decent job imagining how a pre-teen might deal with her exposure to adult emotions that she is not at all ready to handle. This part actually gets about 3 1/2 or 4 stars. But then Bender drops the ball. There is no development of Rose's use of or reaction to her "gift" as she grows, aside from a throwaway suggestion at the end that she might use it for a socially useful purpose. There is no real exploration of what Rose discovers about herself when she tastes her own cooking. Finally, the part about her brother's "gift" is just bizarre. An unlikeable character to begin with, his ability just strained all credibility (yes, I know the whole thing is supposed to be magical, but come ON!). |
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More dense cake than fluff |
The concept behind Bender's novel is truly unique: a little girl who can taste the feelings of those involved in the food-making process. I was surprised, therefore, when the book seemed more focused on the disintegration of her parents' marriage and the difficulties faced by her genius brother rather than the problems surrounding the main character. Told from a small child's eyes, the feelings evoked were poignant and real, and I was drawn into the beautiful destruction.
Bender's pacing in this book is fantastic. The push and pull are tangible, and it turns reading into what it should be: an all-absorbing affair. With that being said, there were a few brief moments where she suddenly jumps into the past, and it takes a moment or two for me to realize what had just happened. All of these scenes are relevant, of course, but the shift is still abrupt, even for the start of a new chapter. The lead-up to the explanation behind Joe's disappearances was well-played, and the ultimate revelation is reasonable, but it lacks the impact that it could have had due to the suddenness of its delivery.
I find myself torn in how I feel about the writing style. On the one hand, it is simplistic, and it matched very well with the mentality of a youngster. Even so, the "he said/she said" method was overly grating in some sequences, where a greater variety of verb would have been greatly valued. The story ends when Rose is in her twenties, and while there is much to be said for consistency in an author's writing, the change dispatched my assumptions regarding her word choices. The lack of quotation marks was also disorienting, as I couldn't tell sometimes whether I was reading first person narrative or dialogue.
In short, this book was a worthwhile read with a few flaws. Even now, I feel emotionally wrung out, which says a great deal for the impact that the author made with her tale. If one can work one's way past the stylistic ticks and unclear designations for speech, one will find an enjoyable story to while away a few hours.
Stimulated Outlet Book Reviews |
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The particular sadness of lemon cake |
I did not enjoy this book at all. I kept waiting for something to happen and to no avail... nothing. The ending was extremely depressing and I was totally confused about why the author wrote the book
to begin with. What was the point? I normally like most everything that I read and am not one that is hard to please but this was just a complete waste of time and money. Just don't have huge expectations if you are interested in reading this. I actually wanted to understand the characters more but it is written in such a way that you really don't care for any of them. It was just Blah! |
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