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The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake A Novel Aimee Bender 9780385501125 Books

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The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake A Novel Aimee Bender 9780385501125 Books

I listened to this book on my MP3 player, having downloaded it from our public library. Perhaps my negative review stems from the monotone and plodding reading by the author. With that in mind I have to say that this was among the most boring and tedious books I've ever encountered. This is a book where threads of interest are not followed, and moments of passion, intrigue and just plain good story telling are lost and leave the reader saying..What? Huh? What just happened? I've read the other reviews, especially the positive ones, and feel like this is a case of the "emperor's new clothes". I found the simplicity of the book irritating, and a way for the author to avoid good and creative story telling and character development. I have to say that I was very glad when the book was finished. This is a book with no real substance,just an initially good idea which did not at all deliver, in my opinion.


Tags : The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel [Aimee Bender] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse. </b> On the eve of her ninth birthday,Aimee Bender,The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel,Doubleday,0385501129,Family secrets;Fiction.,Psychological fiction.,Taste;Fiction.,American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +,Bildungsromans,Family secrets,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,Literary,Taste

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake A Novel Aimee Bender 9780385501125 Books Reviews

Such a lovely, lyrical book. The emotions hover around the edges waiting to unfold. We see only glimpses of the interior lives of the characters, but enough to know they are like us more hidden than revealed. The narration flows like a story should, we see moments in time without intervening detail. We recognize that most days aren't eventful. There is magic here, but an almost ordinary magic. Tasting feeling in food. It could happen, you could get used to it, adjust to it. The strangeness at the end of the book (no spoiler alert, just know it is strange) seems too much, too sudden, too abrupt. And then the book ends. I understand the author is a short story writer. They don't specialize in endings. This book just ends. I was left feeling like someone had slammed the brakes. But I still recommend it. Just live with the ending. The rest is worth it.
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.
We all different gifts and some of us may also view them as curses. But, after I finished the book, I was annoyed because the author didn't have any real "point" to make about the meaning of having a gift except maybe to say that "Life is despair and hopelessness" and you'll always be fragmented and from family and society and destroyed because of your gift". She says this without justifying why this may be true. If she had some justification, or hinted at one, I may be able to accept her comment on life even though I may ultimately disagree with her pessimistic view. Depressing and despairing read. I want to believe that there is hope for those that may be fragmented from family or society because of a personal experience or gift. Hope for reconnection. That would have been a challenging thing to write.

SPOILER At the end of the book, the brother turns into a chair. I had to re-read several times to finally figure that out. At the end of the read, I can see how this was foreshadowed so it didn't suddenly drop out of "nothing" but the fact that Rose suddenly developed a second gift that allowed her to see this seems rather contrived. There should have been another way of us finding out the brother was a chair without Rose suddenly developing a second gift. Perhaps the Father should have been the one to discover what happened to the brother and in doing so, the readers could have been introduced to the Father's gift (in other words, give the Father a different gift!). The father's gift was not developed enough so it isn't a gifting to me at all but just a common paranoia of being afraid of hospitals.

Despairing read.
I listened to this book on my MP3 player, having downloaded it from our public library. Perhaps my negative review stems from the monotone and plodding reading by the author. With that in mind I have to say that this was among the most boring and tedious books I've ever encountered. This is a book where threads of interest are not followed, and moments of passion, intrigue and just plain good story telling are lost and leave the reader saying..What? Huh? What just happened? I've read the other reviews, especially the positive ones, and feel like this is a case of the "emperor's new clothes". I found the simplicity of the book irritating, and a way for the author to avoid good and creative story telling and character development. I have to say that I was very glad when the book was finished. This is a book with no real substance,just an initially good idea which did not at all deliver, in my opinion.