The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

A Novel

By: Aimee Bender

Narrated by: Aimee Bender

The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.

The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language” (San Francisco Chronicle).

©2010 Aimee Bender (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

"Odd and oddly beautiful....moving"--The Washington Post

"Haunting....Bender's prose delivers electric shocks....rendering the world in fresh, unexpected jolts. Moving, fanciful and gorgeously strange."--People Magazine

"Charming and wistful....[Bender] harness[es] her exquisite, bizarre sensitivity, in this haunting examination."-- The Atlantic

Still unsure

I’m still unsure as to whether I enjoyed this book. It wasn’t what I was expecting for sure. I just don’t know if anybody really developed or if they just got older.
I definitely prefer narrations by somebody other than the author.

Not the best read, nor the best written book

Would you try another book from Aimee Bender and/or Aimee Bender?

First an Foremost, the Author Aimee Bender, should have used a professional voice talent to read the book. Her reading of the book came across as flat and monotone.

Next....Listening to, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, created conflicting emotions for me. I had a hard time with it; hearing about dysfunctional people or families without knowing that there will be a positive outcome is very, very difficult for me. On the other hand, it was much like watching a train wreck, I couldn’t look away.

While not wanting to give away the plot, I will say that it was hard for me to suspend disbelief; I often read fantasy and stories which use magic at their core. To me there were two parts to the story, one of a dysfunctional family delving into the relationships of married parents; the relationship between brother and sister with little in common, and the relationship of the children and their parents. All of the relationships in the story are dysfunctional. The other part of the story is the magical ability of the main character, Rose, who begins the story at the age of 9 and follows through her adolescence and to the age of 22.

While I am glad that I didn’t give up and that I did finish the story it was difficult I would have a very hard time recommending it to others to read or to listen to it. The pace of the story is slow and the characters were often unlikeable. The mother is self-absorbed and wouldn’t win any awards for mother of the year. The father is remote and guarded and not really present in the family. The brother is socially awkward and not written with any depth; he runs through the story more shadowy than any other character. Perhaps, this is deliberate, but I never ‘cared’ about the brother, so his storyline didn’t evoke a response as the plot twists occurred. As a matter of fact, lack of depth of all of the characters is one of the major reasons I wouldn’t recommend this book. All of the characters just seemed flat. By the end of the book the oddities and strangeness of the family makes more sense but it is too little too late.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The most interesting aspect of the story was the concept of intuition regarding inanimate objects.

The least interesting, the character.

Would you be willing to try another one of Aimee Bender’s performances?

Definitely, I am not interested in hearing Aimee Bender reading another offering.

Was The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake worth the listening time?

I didn't feel that it was worth my time, I finished it because, well I always finish books either read or listening.

Might have been a great experience

My wife loved this book, so I tried it. Fool that I am, I failed to notice that it was "read by the author." Bender might be a good author, but her reading made the book sound like classified ads.

Authors reading their own books. Isn't there a proposition against that in California?

Couldn't finish it

It dragged. And dragged. And dragged. I think the story line was unique, but there was nothing there to capture me, nothing that made me want to keep listening. Add with that the reader's bland, intonation-less, and grating voice, and I simply couldn't finish.

Sad reader left ya a bit depressed

The storyline was weird and interesting that well written. Left you hanging a lot. But the reader had such a depressed and monotone voice I always was very sad reading his book

Disappointing audiobook performance

What did you like best about this story?

The premise is intriguing and original.

What didn???t you like about Aimee Bender???s performance?

This audiobook should serve as a cautionary tale for authors who want to narrate their own books. There is more to an audiobook performance than simply reading the written words aloud. The flat narration makes the book seem dull and one-dimensional. It's difficult to hear a distinction between characters, and makes an otherwise interesting premise much less engaging.

Interesting idea, poorly executed

I'm not sure it's fair to be irritated with an author because they didn't write the book that I wanted to read, but that may be warranted with The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Rose Edelstein's ability to taste the emotions of the person who prepared her food was initially very interesting to me; I thought of it as a type of synesthesia and was looking forward to seeing how Aimee Bender explored the subject. That plot line gets dropped about halfway through the book; then the real strangeness starts, and the book becomes Rose's brother's story.

The only reason I remotely enjoyed this book was because of this one line, a statement by Rose's mother, "Sometimes, she said mostly to herself, I feel I do not know my children"..."That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit." I've been thinking about this a lot recently as my children have grown up and left home. We feel as if we know them so well as children because we willingly tend to all their physical and emotional needs over 18 years or so, and know so many aspects of their lives and thoughts, but lately I've had to remind myself that I need to know them as the adults they are currently and are becoming

Partucularly Sad Lemons

I wish I had had the benefit of these reviews before I purchased and started listening to this book.

My first bit of irratation come from listening to Aimee Bender's annoying voice. I was at first hopeful that she was just going to read the dedication and intro info but then when I realized that she would be reading the entire book, I became particularly sad.

This sadness has become more pronounced as I continue to listen - I am two hours into the eight hour book and still cannot get interested. The plot is minimal, the writing style unisteresting. If there were a way to get my money refunded, I would ask for it on this book. I think I will just put it to the side and read something else.

Please, listen to the sample and read the other reviews before purchasing this book.

Not quite what I expected

The story seemed a bit all over the place. Very slow parts. I liked the concept but definitely not what I expected.

This was a long novella

Like so many others, I see this as a book that had so much potential that feels wasted. Interesting concept, but it should have been a a short story instead.