Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

I was certainly drawn to this book by its title. And even the premise, of a girl who can taste people's emotions in the food they prepare. The book is beautifully written and engrossing. But it is a strange to the point of confusing and a bit disturbing to me. And although the plot was unique, I didn't connect much with the characters. Interesting, but not my cup of tea (or slice of cake).

I had high expectations for this book, because the premise sounded unusual and fascinating. I was pretty disappointed with the book overall, though, for several reasons.

First, I have some difficulty with non-standard punctuation and prose, and Bender's lack of quotation marks in dialogue made this book frustrating to read at times. I'm not a big fan of stylistic creativity in that way, though I can see that it lent a certain disconnectedness to this book.

Second, I felt as though many of the plot lines were left uninvestigated. Rose's father remains a mystery for the majority of the novel, though that is somewhat resolved by the end. The circumstances of Rose's brother Joseph remain alarming, unfinished, and unusually vague. Bender's world is magical reality; things are both like we know them and not, but there's not much clarification as to why or how.

This book was not charming or humorous, as some reviewers have said. I found a surprising lack of humanness in this book, which is also contrary to what many have said. Instead, I found it largely underdeveloped and flat.