The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is delicious. Masterfully written, 'Cake' delivers prose, plot and characterization. Forgive my bad food analogies and metaphors, but stay with me a moment. When eating real layer cake, you taste the cake -- chocolate, lemon or vanilla, the stuff between the layers -- maybe some raspberry, or nuts, and of course, frosting . Each, individually, fantastic ingredients. But together in harmony? Sublime. They're poetry. That' is experience of reading 'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.' I didn't want it to end.I'm not one for sentimentality -- I laugh through Hamlet -- but I was genuinely moved by the plight of the young protagonist. Rose is a sensitive 9 year old. She's overwhelmed by her own emotions, the emotions she senses in others as well as the actions of others. Rose is in the process of decoding it all, and as she does so, feels that maybe she's not 'normal'. In other words, she's growing up! She awakens to the imperfection she sees in her parents and in the world. She witnesses the mystery of her brother, an adolescent more comfortable blending into the furniture than stepping out into the world to face it head on.Though the remarkable 'Cake', is well-plotted (I won't spoil it for anyone here), the book doesn't hammer us with obvious plot points as so many stories do. 'Cake' omits just enough information to tease and push the reader forward in delight. The author credits the reader with intelligence enough to 'think' and add 1+1+1 together for a grand layer cake totaling 3. The frosting, of course, is the prose. Author Aimee Bender has a gifted voice. If she gave us sentences alone, that would be enough. But Bender takes the reader into Rose's beautifully crafted world and shows them the magic, the fear, the love and wonderment in this young woman's life.With her latest achievement, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender takes the leap from great to greatness.Read it and feast.

What? What? It just ended. All the way to the end it had me then it just fell off of a cliff. I have been thinking about this book all night. Took me less than twelve hours to read. I thoroughly enjoyed reading every minute of it. I fell in love with our heroine and I loved the way the writer didn't put the words being said in quotations. VERY different and unique!!!I felt like I was her, putting every bite of food into my mouth, I could feel it too. What a gift and/or ugly thing to have at times. Our writer has a real gift, this book will be one of my all time favorites, how can you NOT like it? I didn't find it all sad, I thought she went on to use her gift very appropriately and was really surprised at some of the things farther on down the line.I can't get over this book. It will stay with me for a long time. Maybe it is because it has to do with food, I don't know. I loved the writing style and I loved the characters. They felt so real and heartfelt. I will recommend this book to EVERYONE!That all being said, however I was puzzled as to what the heck happened to Joe. What was the deal? I won't ruin it for others, but WHAT in the heck???? I didn't like the ending. Seemed just to abruptly end ---

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is like a sustained dream - at times normal-feeling, then a little odd, then very unsettling, intriguing. And also like a dream, Lemon Cake ends with some of the most intriguing questions raised by Aimee Bender ultimately unanswered; the reader sees a little light, a few, small things become a bit clearer, and then the dream is over, and the reader is lifted out of it, left with a fascination for the dream world and, most of all, the emotional residue.I think that's my favorite aspect of this book - the emotional effects that Bender's writing produced. Much like Rose discovers that she can use the medium of taste to feel emotions in a strange, unresolved way, Bender's language and imagery accomplished this same transaction through the medium of words. I think my favorite moment of the novel was Rose's discovery of her brother Joseph, sitting in his apartment, quiet, alone, in the midst of a literal disappearing act - the leg of a chair strangely substituted for his own leg. I felt something funny in my stomach that must have been akin to what Rose felt, seeing a chair leg sitting inside of her brother's shoe - uneasiness, fear, confusion, a sense of something very wrong unfolding, but more than anything else, pure captivation.The novel also serves as a sort of coming-of-age story, following Rose from the day she first discovers her ability throughout the remainder of her education, and into her post-academic life. These parts of the story are remarkably human, in the context of the oddities that Bender litters throughout the text: Rose struggles to understand why her parents' marriage is disintegrating, she navigates her way through friendships that begin to fail as high school comes to an end, she tries to manage a long-standing crush on her brother's best friend but ends up fooling around with a jock who means nothing to her instead. And Bender also gives the reader a sense of family history, which gives even greater depth to the world of the novel.Lemon Cake is a great piece of magical realism, as is the collection of Bender's short stories which I've also read, Willful Creatures. It's certainly not for everyone, and Bender's refusal to answer what are perhaps the most captivating questions she raises - the questions of magical realism - will leave some readers frustrated and unsatisfied. But if you feel like taking a trip into a bizarre story world for a little while, and if you can accept from the outset that, like a dream, the pieces aren't always going to fit together or be properly explained to you, then I definitely recommend The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

A particular read.. use your imagination.

C'est une histoire émouvante et très originale avec de detours inattendus, on reste accroché jusqu'au fin. A recommender sans hesitation.

This is a beautifully-written book, with an intriguing premise and one of the most original storylines I've ever come across.All I can say to all the negative reviewers is: don't you know how to suspend disbelief?! Does everything always need to be neatly explained? Do stories always have to move in a linear fashion? And why does the lack of quotation marks cause such confusion?!Beautiful story, beautiful characters, beautifully told, with an ending which is almost too poignant to bear.The situation regarding Joseph rather put me in mind of Kafka's Metamorphosis. If you enjoy stories that are quirky, different, and which enter the realms of fantasy, you could do a lot worse than read this book. I am so pleased to have discovered it, and it will now take pride of place on my bookshelf to be read and enjoyed again and again.

A nice, light and easy read. Has that grown-up fairy tale feel to it that makes an ordinary act like eating/ cooking food seem magical!The writing is beautiful! You can almost see the Californian sunlight streaming through the windows of their house 😍.Four stars because a few niggling questions remain unanswered, but only little ones.Over all, I’d say, this book was hours spent well 😊

sans raconter l'histoire, on ne s'attend pas du tout à cette fin, ces rebondissements, ce passage vers le surnaturel. très bien écrit (en VO), les émotions de l'héroïne sont pafaitement retranscrites.