The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Rose Edelstein can tell people's emotions from tasting the food they make--deeply if they've worked a while on it, but even a piece of toast can betray things she most definitely doesn't want to know. Author-narrator Aimee Bender has a pleasant voice, and she does her best when delivering dialogue that expresses the emotions in the food Rose has just eaten. Gradually, other family members confide unusual and eerie "gifts" that help Rose put her own uniqueness into perspective. Bender delivers her book with a slow, somber delivery. One can't help but wonder what a more expressive narrator might have done to bring this singular story to life. D.G. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

April 12, 2010
Taking her very personal brand of pessimistic magical realism to new heights (or depths), Bender’s second novel (following An Invisible Sign of My Own
) careens splendidly through an obstacle course of pathological, fantastical neuroses. Bender’s narrator is young, needy Rose Edelstein, who can literally taste the emotions of whoever prepares her food, giving her unwanted insight into other people’s secret emotional lives—including her mother’s, whose lemon cake betrays a deep dissatisfaction. Rose’s father and brother also possess odd gifts, the implications of which Bender explores with a loving and detailed eye while following Rose from third grade through adulthood. Bender has been called a fabulist, but emerges as more a spelunker of the human soul; carefully burrowing through her characters’ layered disorders and abilities, Bender plumbs an emotionally crippled family with power and authenticity. Though Rose’s gift can seem superfluous at times, and Bender’s gustative insights don’t have the sensual potency readers might crave, this coming-of-age story makes a bittersweet dish, brimming with a zesty, beguiling talent.