Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake







People who are true food lovers will always say that eating is an emotional experience. From that point of view, Aimee Bender tells the story of Rose Edelstein who experiences her adolescence through the emotions that she tastes in the food she eats.

When Rose turns nine her mother bakes a special lemon cake for her, and this is where Rose's food tasting journey starts. Rose is horrified with the realisation that she knows what people feel when she eats the food they prepare.

Reality, Rose discovers, is stranger than fiction.

Aimee Bender writes heartbreaking prose that makes you giggle at one point and then plunges you in deep depression the next. She writes her characters in such a way that the reader can identify with them in all circumstances. We have all felt these emotions. We just did not realise that they are evident in the food we prepare or eat.

A thoroughly enjoyable book to read with such beautiful writing, that once you start, you just continue to turn the pages until you realise that the story is done and life goes on again.

Reviewer: Antonia Vermeulen


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