The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

A Novel

By: Aimee Bender

Narrated by: Aimee Bender

The wondrous Aimee Bender conjures the lush and moving story of a girl whose magical gift is really a devastating curse.

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.

The curse her gift has bestowed is the secret knowledge all families keep hidden—her mother’s life outside the home, her father’s detachment, her brother’s clash with the world. Yet as Rose grows up she learns to harness her gift and becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is a luminous tale about the enormous difficulty of loving someone fully when you know too much about them. It is heartbreaking and funny, wise and sad, and confirms Aimee Bender’s place as “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language” (San Francisco Chronicle).

Might have been a great experience

My wife loved this book, so I tried it. Fool that I am, I failed to notice that it was "read by the author." Bender might be a good author, but her reading made the book sound like classified ads.

Authors reading their own books. Isn't there a proposition against that in California?

Couldn't finish it

It dragged. And dragged. And dragged. I think the story line was unique, but there was nothing there to capture me, nothing that made me want to keep listening. Add with that the reader's bland, intonation-less, and grating voice, and I simply couldn't finish.

Sad reader left ya a bit depressed

The storyline was weird and interesting that well written. Left you hanging a lot. But the reader had such a depressed and monotone voice I always was very sad reading his book

Disappointing audiobook performance

What did you like best about this story?

The premise is intriguing and original.

What didn???t you like about Aimee Bender???s performance?

This audiobook should serve as a cautionary tale for authors who want to narrate their own books. There is more to an audiobook performance than simply reading the written words aloud. The flat narration makes the book seem dull and one-dimensional. It's difficult to hear a distinction between characters, and makes an otherwise interesting premise much less engaging.

Still unsure

I’m still unsure as to whether I enjoyed this book. It wasn’t what I was expecting for sure. I just don’t know if anybody really developed or if they just got older.
I definitely prefer narrations by somebody other than the author.