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Tuesday 3 February 2015

Book Review : The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender



Pages :  292

Read on : Kindle


Review:  It's been a while since I posted anything on the blog. Not something I intended to do on purpose but it happened. Shamelessly,I'm not apologizing because I loved every minute I was away. However I can only neglect my blog for so long without feeling guilty.

I read this book last year and I profoundly remember It taking me longer than usual to finish this. Also I guess I can safely call it my first magical realism adult book I ever read. The story is about a young girl discovering and exploring her ability to taste feelings/thoughts/emotions in food. It mostly revolves around her mother's never ending despair, depression and an affair. It's extremely uncomfortable knowing the pain and loneliness of her mother since these are things we otherwise wouldn't have noticed in real life.
I would have expected Rose Edelstein ( the protagonist) to have taken her talent and secret and be much more adventurous with it. Sadly, that doesn't happen. If anything, she gets fogged down by an even more complex character - her brother. There isn't much said about him as he is by himself an absent character that we learn is part of who he is, discreetly hinting that he may have had a special ability too. Although his ability was strange and eccentric, losing him almost felt like a death in the Edelstein family. No one, including him, ever knew of his whereabouts and the duration that he would be away for or if he would ever return.
This book made me reflect on a few things. I began staring at my mother while she did mundane house work trying to understand what she was feeling or thinking at that moment. I would be lying If I didn't admit I was glad not to know. Food that we consume thoughtlessly on the basis of flavour may have been a painful and even taxing for young Rose Edelstein. Not being able to fully understand and reason with her brother and his subsequent absence will leave you with heartache.
Apart from that, the book is rampantly vague with way too many lose ends that I personally felt is not encouraging enough for a reader to stay on till the very end. Unanswered questions are tricky. Some books are loved for that one hanging, benefit-of-doubt element but not when it is clouded with a dozen of them.
I wouldn't highly recommend this to a lot people. I would,however, mildly recommend it to an older audience with caution just so that we can discuss what they gathered from the story.

Final Rating: 3/5

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