Customer Reviews

Eat Cake (Brilliance Audio on Compact Disc)

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I discovered Ms. Ray before I started reading her daughter's books, Ms. Ann Patchett. I'm not sure how I found her, just something about the premise of Julie and Romeo struck a cord, so I read it and enjoyed it so much. Well, then I read her second novel and enjoyed it also, so I was thrilled when this showed up on my amazon recommendations. I curled up with this book and read it in one day, with very few interruptions, and I was so involved with the characters, that by the end of the book, I felt as if I knew them. This is a fun, hopeful read and had some lines in it that I quoted out loud to the family, much to their dismay, since I then had to explain who everyone was and what was going on.
Anyway, read this book when you need a warm, lovely diversion from your life. The main character sees herself in cakes to relieve stress, I used this author's book as my therapy. Thank you Ms. Ray.

Ruth is having a bad day. Her estranged father Guy calls to announce that he broke both wrists, needs help caring for himself, and is moving in with her for a while. Her mother Hollis, who already lives with her and who detests Guy, announces her displeasure over it. Her husband Sam announces that he just lost his job. Her daughter Camille is a moody teenager who never announces much of anything. Ruth's family experiences a lot of turmoil as Hollis and Guy face off against each other, Sam starts thinking about a career change, and the financial concerns begin to mount. To attempt to cope with all this, Ruth does what she always does when under stress: she bakes cakes. For Ruth, cakes are her escape from the pressures of daily life. She even imagines being in the center of a huge warm bundt cake as a means of relaxing meditation. Can Ruth's cakes save the day in this crisis?

This may be a story of a family in crisis, but I wouldn't really call it a dysfunctional family. It is a family struggling to deal with the same pressures and problems that so many families do: aging parents, balky adolescents, unemployment, and midlife career crises. Jeanne Ray's novels are feel-good books full of warmth, humor, and wisdom. "Eat Cake" is no exception. In fact, as I read it I felt as warm and comfortable as if I were in the center of that fresh-from-the-oven bundt cake with Ruth. At the end of the book is a collection of recipes for cakes mentioned in the story. They include such delights as "Sweet potato bundt cake with rum-plumped raisins and a spiced sugar glaze" and "Almond apricot pound cake with amaretto." Read this delectable book, which can be devoured in a sitting or two, and then try your hand at one of the cake recipes. Bon appetit!

Eileen Rieback

This sweet book is a delicious break from life. Sorry, the dessert metaphors just seem appropriate. Ruth is a member of the sandwich generation; her oldest son is away at college, but she still has a teenage daughter at home and her mother moves in after she is robbed in the middle of a bridge game in her own home. Her husband's company is bought out and he loses his job, and her estranged father has a terrible accident and no insurance and moves in, too. Ruth's way to escape is to use visual imagery; her picture of solitude and bliss is not a mountain retreat or a deserted beach, but a cake. Yes, Ruth visualizes herself surrounded by walls of cake and is comforted. And when the going gets tough, Ruth bakes. Cakes, of course. Every day. Sometimes in the middle of the night, when sleep just won't come. As the family dynamic changes, they all must learn to adapt and adjust, and eat cake. Recipes included. Warning: do not read this book while on a diet.

Jeanne Ray is one of my favorite authors, her books just touch the heart without being cloy or cutesy. Her characters are genuine and people you can care about, her stories are simple yet hit home. She still hasn't topped her first book, Julie and Romeo, which is on my top ten list of favorite books of all time, but this is a very enjoyable read. Her daughter is pretty talented, too - she's Ann Patchett of Bel Canto fame.

I am a big fan of Jeanne Ray. My favorite is Step-Ball-Change but this is second. Don't read it if you're hungry or dieting. :-) Actually it is, as usual, a good story of marriage and family dynamics. I really enjoyed the grandparents and the teenager. Read ALL of Jeanne Ray's books. You won't be disappointed.

There is nothing wrong with sharing a cake with family and friends. But the author wanted to go into SO MUCH detail on the mixing, measuring, making, folding, smelling, seeing, tasting that it slowed the story. I nearly gave up.

Then the family dynamics came into play and that was interesting. But every now and then we had to put up some more baking and really strange combinations of cakes. I found myself saying get on with the story. I just wanted to know the next problem and how she fixed it.

If you could shorten the story by 10%, really cut back on the descriptions of baking I would have given it 5 stars.

Take a middle aged housewife, a husband who just lost his job, a sarcastic grandma, an artsy piano playing grandpa, and a snotty know it all teenager......

Who by the way live under the same roof... And

What do you have?

All of the ingrediants for a delicious novel!

While the rest of the world copes by getting drunk or writing poetry...Ruth bakes cakes! And not just your run-of-the-mill cakes, but unbelievably moist, delectable cakes. Sweet potato cakes, expresso cakes, orange cake w/burnt orange frosting....

ohhhhhhhh yeeees!

Instead of blowing up...Ruth measures baking powder, sugar, flour, pure vanilla and beats the mixture to perfection.

In the meantime...the grandma and grandpa, who have been separated for years, argue continually. The teenage daughter is cranky as heck, and Ruth's husband is thinking about buying a sail-boat!
Well, you could say, it's a little tense around the house.

So, Ruth bakes.

When I want to go someplace, a quiet safe place, I go inside a cake, Ruth says.

"Eat Cake" has all the right stuff that add up to a moist, crumbless, lush, sweet dessert!

Ruth will share her cakes with many people in this book, and she will share her recipes with the reader in the end.

I still taste the sugar on my tongue!

Before Chick Lit there were women's contemporary writers like Elizabeth Berg and Barbara Kingsolver -- writers who touched at the issues and concerns of women, but did so with intelligence and wit. Jeanne Ray writes in the same way -- perhaps with a bit less intensity, but definitely with the same pen. Eat Cake tells the story of a middle-aged woman who must recreate herself when her life is turned upside-down by her husband's layoff and warring parents. She delves into her deepest desires and finds -- herself.

"Eat Cake" is the third thoroughly charming book from the wonderful Jeanne Ray. Each of her books has featured two main themes. One is that everyone should find a vocation or a passion in life, such as selling flowers, tap dancing, or in this case, baking sumptuous cakes. Ray also explores the theme of how people fall in and out of love.

Ruth Hopson, the main character in "Eat Cake," is a primo baker. Her family wishes that she would stop baking already, since they are up to their ears in cakes. Suddenly, Ruth's husband, Sam, loses his job, and the family is seriously strapped for cash. Ruth's mother, Hollis, lives with her. Hollis is mortified when her long-long husband, an irresponsible drifter who plays piano in lounges, shows up at his daughter's house to recuperate from a freak accident. Hollis has no desire to live with her despised husband under one roof.

Jeanne Ray takes all of these ingredients and mixes them up into a delicious souffle. The comic exchanges between the characters are priceless. Ray beautifully depicts how the members of this family slowly begin to look at one another in a new light. She demonstrates how we take our relatives for granted until we realize how precious and indispensable they really are. An added treat, for those who love to bake, is the section in the back of the book that is chock full of cake recipes.

For a pleasant read that will tickle your funny bone and make you ravenous for a delicious piece of cake, pick up this enchanting novel.

Jeanne Ray has cooked up another delightful novel with Eat Cake. A pinch of humor here, a dash of surprise there make her latest novel pure pleasure for the reader's palate. The book is never overly sweet or disappointingly sour, and that's no small feat when dealing with weighty issues such as coping with a laid-off spouse, taking care of elderly parents, and dealing with teenagers. One bite of this book will keep you munching away until it's finished. The only problem then is the wait until Jeanne Ray serves up another slice of life, novel-style.

Reading this book is like munching on cake -- homemade cake, not too sweet, with just the right amount of icing. The pages turn quickly and you begin to relax and feel good about the world. And you're tempted: can you get another piece later?

The book's opening is a winner. Ruth, attending a stress clinic, encounters the common exercise to take yourself to a safe place. She has trouble at first but soon realizes her safe space is right inside a warm Bundt cake. Makes me hungry just thinking about it!

Ruth's life is about baking cakes -- from scratch. She bakes to relax. She bakes to win friends. She bakes -- well, to bake! And ultimately baking is what saves her and her family batches of trouble. Her husband's job disappears in a merger. Her father, wrists broken, comes to stay awhile. Her daughter is being a typical teenager. And under the same roof is her mother who hisses and spits like a cat at the sight of her ex-husband, Ruth's father.

Now, Ruth realizes, she really needs those stress classes. Instead, she finds inspiration from her father's physical therapist, a character the dust jacket compares to Cheryl Richardson, and her father himself.

Ruth begins a new venture and that's where the book gets a little heavy on the icing. Ruth is immensely gifted, but talent is not enough, whether you're a baker or a writer. Miraculously, everyone in Ruth's family -- as well as the helpful physical therapist -- contributes a skill or connection to the enterprise.

Plausible? Yes. The author of Girls with the Grandmother Faces published her first book with the help of her family, around her own kitchen table. Lucky? Also yes. In some families the parents would be whiny wet blankets, the daughter a teen pregnancy waiting to happen and the college-age son a delinquent.

I must admit I'm a little biased against books that present starting a business as nearly effortless. However, sometimes you want to enjoy a cake and forget the calories. And sometimes you want to enjoy a well-written feel-good story where the fairy godmother is a composite of most of the folks in the heroine's life and it takes six months, not a wave of the wand, to move the reader to a happy ending.