The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

A Novel

By: Aimee Bender

Narrated by: Aimee Bender

Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

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

5/5

I'm so glad I ignored the reviews on this one! I don't give 5/5 very often, but the book really captured my attention and imagination. I found the pace to be perfect for a story about a supposedly ordinary family, and those little absurd surprises kept me turning the pages (so to speak). I enjoy books that are narrated by the authors; it brings you closer to the intentions of the characters. In this case too, the low key narration left a lot for the listener to fill in.

???? what was it about?

Unlike most listeners, I didn't mind the narrator, but maybe that's because I'm from the UK. But as for the content - I just didn't get it, I didn't get what the brother was doing, I see from other reviews that that became clear in the last 10 mins but even going back to the last 10mins, I still didn't get it, and I couldn't be bothered to go back further. I would be pleased to find the answer to that, as for the rest of it, it just seemed that each family member had strange problems.
Would I recommend it? NO, definitely not. Life is too short to waste 8 hours listening to this!

Miserable

I don't know what was worse, the miserable narration... almost in a monotone, or the story that dragged on and on.... I kept thinking, please end and put me out of my misery! To make it worse... it was a depressing read.... yuck!

Sad

I really wanted to like this book and pushed through to the end though several times I wanted to hit the delete button and be done with it. The story is so slow, and desperately sad. The reader was a perfect match to the story content--cold, irritated, depressed. I usually don't write reviews and I generally like the books I get on audible very much, but I had to write one this time. If someone is interested in this book, I would suggest reading it not listening to it and then only if you are in a very, very good mood and willing to be brought down a notch or too. In a word--Sad.

Great listen

read this book a long time ago and just remembered it. listened to in in two days and it was just as great as I remembered. cool to have Aimee read it, the cadence was what I imagined. I bet my roommate would go wild about the felt sense of it all.

boring!!!!!

This book never got me involved, the simplistic sentence structures and vocabulary the author seems to purposely use to appeal to readers who can't comprehend anything more complex, and the lack of a real plot or conflict simply bored me completely and turned me off.I didn't bother to finish it. A waste of money.

The Particular Sadness of Bad Writing

Yes, the narration if horrible, but I am mostly disappointed in a story that went absolutely nowhere and takes 8 hours to do it. Imagine being stuck on a detour that loops in circles with no scenic stimulation all day! We are led by characters with no depth and as far as I can tell, no redeeming qualities. I didn't care about anyone. Bender's hook was great and as such, obviously her agent and publisher believed it was enough. Too bad so many trees were killed to make this a "bestseller." I'm glad at least my misery was an easily deletable download.

Author Narrators

This is why authors should hire narrators. Aimee Bender's reading was so bad I had to stop after only 30mins.

Terrible

Please don't read this. It's the worst book I've ever read/heard. Save yourself. DONT READ THIS!!!!!!!!!

"i said, he said, she said"

I agree with others this was by far the worst book i have listened to thus far. The monotone reading along with the dullness of the story left me wondering how this book ever made it through publishing. I also wish i could get a refund. I would not suggest this book to anyone.