The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake ~ Aimee Bender

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
by Aimee Bender

I’ve always been fascinated by books which bring magical elements into our everyday world.  Following in the footsteps of such well known authors as Alice Hoffman and Isabel Allende, authors like Sarah Addison Allen and Aimee Bender offer us fresh insight into the human soul through riveting stories that bring fairy tales and fables to modern life.

Aimee Bender offers a lyrical story in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.  Rose Edelstein is an average little girl, overshadowed by her somewhat brilliant older brother and outside the special relationship he seems to have with their mother.  Then, when her mother bakes her a trial run birthday cake for Rose’s ninth birthday, Rose discovers an unusual gift.  She can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake, the “absence, hunger, spiraling, hollows.”  Though it is sweet and delicious, the cake tastes empty.    

From then on, Rose can taste her mother’s deep dissatisfaction with her life in every bite of food her mother prepares.  It is a painful awareness.  When her mother starts an affair, Rose can taste it.  As time goes on, Rose finds she can trace where a food came from and who was involved in its preparation, right back to the farm where the ingredients were grown. 

Rose slowly realizes that her brother has a special gift, a very disturbing gift, that takes him further and further away from their family.  She wonders where these gifts came from.  Neither of her parents have gifts, or do they?

One oddity is that even with her dialogue, Bender uses no quotes.  I can see where that would consternate some readers.  It gives the book the feel of a flashback, more of an internal quality, a storybook quality. 

This is not a “happy” book.  Everything is not going to be “okay,” and yet it is.  Rose finds a niche for herself in the world, finds her way.  That, to me, is real life.  At the end of the book I felt I had experienced something; that I had taken in a new way of looking at the world.  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is an unusual book.  The author leads you down a path but in the end you do have to take a fairly large leap.  I enjoyed this book deeply, but you’ll have to decide for yourself whether you do.