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200 of 209 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
beautiful, spare, and poetic, May 25, 2010
This review is from: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel (Hardcover)
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This is one of those rare books that makes me realize how grateful I am that I enjoy reading and am given the gift of being able to slip into someone else's story and experience what they do through the written word.
As other reviewers have noted: this is the story of a young woman who discovers that she can taste other people's deepest emotions and secrets through the food that they prepare. It changes her perspective on the world and while there is no "revolution of action" for her (meaning she doesn't harness the power to make a global impact or anything quite as grand) her perceptions and reactions are honest and breathtaking.
I'm not a huge fan of "magic realism" books because I find they tend to tilt towards overblown fairy-tale instead of moments of enchantment which enrich the story, but "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" is a perfect balance. Even the strange story of Rose's brother adds to the story, although there was a chapter I had to read several times to wrap my brain around.
While I do recommend this book, it's NOT for people who find untraditional narrative unappealing. For instance, there is not a *single* quotation mark in the entire book. There is little deliniation between throught and spoken word/conversation. At first, I thought "I can't read this..." but within a page or two, I fell right into Rose's perspective and the book just flowed.
I really loved reading this book. While there were sad moments, I never once felt like chucking the book across the room, which I get the urge to do when other books get overwhelmingly depressing (usually for the sake of packing an emotional punch). "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" kept me enchanted and locked in its story until the last page. And then I insisted my husband read it, which I rarely do.
Great book.
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96 of 105 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
INTERTWINING STRANDS THAT UNRAVEL AT THE END, June 11, 2010
This review is from: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE begins as a fairy tale like adventure about a nine year old little girl named Rose who possesses an unusual "talent". It goes on to explore the well traveled terrain of family dynamics while giving it a magical twist. We are invited to join Rose and her family; a foursome of seriously depressed people, examine their individual coping mechanisms, discover the importance of friendship and acceptance, and come away enlightening by the author's in-depth character insights. I came away from the experience bewildered.
While the author has a definite way with words and her descriptions conjure up magnificent images the ending of the story literally fell apart for me with the resolution of the story of Rose's brother Joseph. I could never really discern between the fact and fantasy part of Joseph's life. I realize that he, like the rest of the family, was suffering from depression but that was only the tip of his particular iceberg. Was he psychotic, autistic, or are we to believe that he really possessed extraordinary powers. I am so confused.
For me this book started out a five star event but dwindled to a three by the time I read the final page. Perhaps I missed a piece of the big picture that would have provided the clarification I am seeking. If so, let me know.
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46 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another magical story from Aimee Bender (4+ stars), May 6, 2010
This review is from: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel (Hardcover)
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If I had been asked to rate this novel on the basis of the first fifty pages, I might have given it 3 stars; however, Bender is so expert at building emotions through her fairy-tale magic realism that, after I read the final words, I sighed with pleasure at a story well-told. Narrator Rose is burdened with a terrible "gift." She can taste the emotions of the cook in every bite she eats, whether that cook is her depressed mother or a rushed restaurant chef or the person who grew the herbs. When Rose tastes the bitterness and betrayals in her parents' marriage, she finds herself on her knees in gratitude for the school vending machine and its array of impersonally processed junk food. Her brother Joseph has a problem as well; he wants nothing more than to be left alone, to be divorced from the dysfunctional family, to disappear from the restrictions of his life. The two understand each other only as siblings can, even though they refuse to accept, at least at first, the peculiarities of the other. It takes George, Joseph's brilliant friend, to release both of them, albeit in different ways.
Bender is known for her fairy-tale-like stories, although her brand of magic realism is more minimalist than most, told with spare prose and no-nonsense characterizations. Although the language is poetic at times, it is never lush, and this stylistic choice makes extraordinary circumstances seem almost mundane. The real force, however, is how the emotions begin to well up in the magic until they mean something so powerful that they change how the reader perceives everything about it. Reading Bender is like eating a Tootsie Roll pop -- all sweet and sameness on the exterior until you reach the chewy middle and realize just how good the complete combination is.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake starts slow but builds to a wondrous conclusion about survival, love, and the ability to embrace one's gifts. For more Aimee Bender, try her inventive and startling story collection, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories
-- Debbie Lee Wesselmann
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