Book Review-Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

As you may have noticed, I like books that are a bit different.  Some of them fall into the category called Magical Realism, which takes place in this world, but the characters have some sort of "gift".  Alice Hoffman often writes in this category.  The magical aspects add a lot to the character's development. My latest foray into this genre is the book "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender.  The book opens with Rose and her mother making a cake for Rose's ninth birthday, a lemon chocolate cake.  After she puts the cake in the oven, Rose's mother takes a little nap.  Rose takes the cake out, and not wanting to wait to taste it, cuts a small piece off and puts frosting on it.  She is surprised to find that the cake tastes more like sadness then lemon chocolate, and she realizes that she is tasting her mother's emotions.  Dinner also tastes of sadness.  Rose can hardly finish and is overcome with her mother's feelings. As time goes on, Rose finds that not only can she taste the emotions of the cook, but she can also taste the emotions of all the people involved with the food, from the farmer on up.  She can identify the factory any particular food comes from.  She starts subsisting on junk food which has not been touched by many people.  At one point, she is so overcome with the emotions in the food that she becomes hysterical.  Her mother takes her to the emergency room (her father has a strange aversion to hospitals), but they can do nothing for her. Rose has to learn how to live with this "gift" and how to move through life knowing more about the people she loves than most people do.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake By Bender, Aimee 2010-06 - Doubleday Books 9780385501125 Check Our Catalog 2011 Alex Award Winner BookPage Notable Title The wondrous Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse. "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" is a luminous tale--heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad. …More

Other books by the same author.

An Invisible Sign of My Own By Bender, Aimee 2001-07 - Anchor Books 9780385492249 Check Our Catalog Aimee Bender's stunning debut collection, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt," proved her to be one of the freshest voices in American fiction. Now, in her first novel, she builds on that early promise. Mona Gray was ten when her father contracted a mysterious illness and she became a quitter, abandoning each of her talents just as pleasure became intense. The only thing she can't stop doing is math: She knocks on wood, adds her steps, and multiplies people in the park against one another. When Mona begins teaching math to second-graders, she finds a ready audience. But the difficult and wonderful facts of life keep intruding. She finds herself drawn to the new science teacher, who has an unnerving way of seeing through her intricately built facade. Bender brilliantly directs her characters, giving them unexpected emotional depth and setting them in a calamitous world, both fancifully surreal and startlingly familiar. …More

Willful Creatures By Bender, Aimee 2006-08 - Anchor Books 9780385720977 Check Our Catalog The author of the dazzling novel "An Invisible Sign of My Own and the critically acclaimed story collection "The Girl in the Flammable Skirt returns with more sublime, beguiling, and breathtakingly original stories of love, sex, heartbreak, and potato babies. With her singular mix of surrealism, musical prose, and keenly felt emotions, Aimee Bender has gained a passionate following among readers and critics. The "San Francisco Chronicle greeted her first story collection with rapturous praise, declaring, "Once in a while a writer comes along who makes you grateful for the very existence of language." Her debut novel was called "as light as a zephyr and unique as a snowflake" ("Washington Post), "a seductively smart read" ("Glamour), and "surreal, edgy, and endearing all at once" ("USA Today). Bender is a brilliant stylist, using language with the nimble grace of a magician. She conjures surreal worlds in which authentic emotion blooms. A woman's children may be potatoes, but the love she feels for them is heartbreakingly real. A boy with keys as fingers is seen not as a freak but as a hero. Bender infuses even inanimate objects with human warmth. Rendering grief, loneliness, hope, love, and happiness with exquisite subtlety and cleverness, Bender once again proves herself to be a masterful chronicler of the human condition. …More

Read Alikes

The Red Garden By Hoffman, Alice 2011-01 - Crown Publishing Group (NY) 9780307393876 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title From the bestselling author of "The Third Angel" and "The Story Sisters" comes a shimmering, unforgettable new book. Hoffman offers a transforming glimpse into small-town America, presenting readers with 300 years of passion, dark secrets, loyalty, and redemption in a web of tales where characters' lives are intertwined by fate and by their own actions. …More

Like Water for Chocolate By Esquivel, Laura Translator Christensen, Thomas Translator Christensen, Carol 1992-09 - Doubleday Books 9780385420167 Check Our Catalog Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef. She shares special points of her favorite preparations with listeners throughout the story. …More

The Tiger's Wife By Obreht, Tea 2011-03 - Random House 9780385343831 Check Our Catalog Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Obreht, the youngest of "The New Yorker's" 20 best American fiction writers under 40, spins a timeless novel about a young doctor who confronts the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather's recent death. …More

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