Review: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

Genre: Fiction
Maturity Level:
View on Goodreads
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆

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. 

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I’m not really sure how to review this book, because I think your enjoyment of it is basically just going to come down to personal taste. It’s very surreal, and if that sort of writing appeals to you great, but if it doesn’t then this probably isn’t going to be the book for you.

ReRead, ReWrite, Burn Tag

Oooo goody, a chance for me to have an unpopular opinion! Yay!!!

So I saw this tag on Modern Witch’s Bookshelf back in June, and I’ve been wanting to do it ever since. Even though I’m doing a tag every week, I’m still so backed up… Whatever not the point. The point is, I’m really excited to talk about some of the books I’ve read this year, though I doubt I would actually burn any of them. LET’S DO THIS!

Also, go follow Samantha from Modern Witch’s Bookshelf if you don’t. She’s the bestest.

Rules

• Randomly choose 3 books
• For each group, decide which book to burn, which one to rewrite, and which to reread (like Marry, Boff, Kill).
• Repeat until you completed three rounds (or six) (or however many you want to do).

So I’m going with books I’ve read so far this year, and choosing them using a random number generator. Here we go! Wee!

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Round One

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Carry On, The Eyre Affair

ReRead: I feel like it’s almost cheating on this one, because I’ve re-read Half-Blood Prince dozens of times, and will keep reading it for my whole life. It’s my second favorite Potter book, and I love how well Rowling balanced the light-hearted moments with the heavy themes.

ReWrite: I love Rainbow Rowell, and I love the way she writes, but for a fantasy book there really wasn’t enough adventure for my taste. I would love to re-do this one with a little more adventuring and a little fewer whiteboards.

Burn: I don’t want to burn The Eyre Affair, but it just sort of got the short end of the stick here. I want to reread it less than HP, and I definitely wouldn’t rewrite it. *shrug*