The release date for the English version of 'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake' by
Aimee Bender is Jun 2010. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
The captivating and poignant tale of a child whose magical skill is also a deadly curse is brought to life by the wonderful Aimee Bender.
When modest Rose Edelstein, a child on the outside of playground activities and her parents' preoccupied attention, eats into her mother's baked lemon-chocolate cake on the eve of her ninth birthday, she finds she has a wonderful gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the cake. She finds this present horrifying since it tastes of desperation and misery, unlike her happy, crafty, can-do mother. For Rose, eating suddenly becomes dangerous and a threat for the rest of her life.
The secret information that all families keep hidden—her father's disengagement, her brother's struggle with the outside world, and her mother's existence outside the home—is the curse that her gift has bequeathed. Rose discovers how to use her talent as she gets older, but she also learns that certain things are hidden from even the most refined palate.
A brilliant story on the immense difficulties of loving someone completely when you know too much about them is found in The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. It validates Aimee Bender's status as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language” (San Francisco Chronicle). It is smart and melancholic, humorous and poignant.