The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender -> Starting June 2nd. 2023

[Aly]

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.

[Saige]

20%:

(view spoiler)[I really like the style of this book so far. Books without quotation marks used to drive me nuts, but I think it really adds to the ambiance here. Though I am a little put off by how unreal these people seem. Maybe that's the point? Like looking at cardboard cutouts of a suburban family. I hope Rose ages up a little as the book goes on, I'm really curious how her ability shifts as she learns more about how/why those feelings happen in the people around her. (hide spoiler)]

[Saige]

62%:

(view spoiler)[I really like how Rose has grown into her character. There are just enough details to tell me what she's like without getting bogged down by high school drama stuff. And I'm super curious if Joseph has magic too - the disappearances certainly sound like it. (hide spoiler)]

[Saige]

70%

(view spoiler)[The sequence with Joseph and the chair was so unexpected! Really solid body horror in a book where I didn't think I'd read something like that. The cover of this book is so deceptive, holy shit. The pastel vibes don't align at all with what the story is actually like. (hide spoiler)]

[Saige]

81%

(view spoiler)[ I've been trying to find the words to describe the mom in this book, and I finally figured it out. She's a manic pixie dream girl. Just grown up. And idk how I feel about that. (hide spoiler)]

[Saige]

Finished:

(view spoiler)[ Sometimes I don't like when books leave things unresolved, but the fact that Joseph just turned into that chair and never came back was unexpectedly painful and beautiful. A really good end to a book that I liked so much more than I expected to. (hide spoiler)]