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

Sometimes, the right book comes exactly when you need it. About halfway through January, I really needed The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender.

Bender is one of my favorite authors. Her prose is tight, her voice is pitch-perfect, her style is equal parts melancholy and humor, and yet, she lets none of this confine her or box her in. Each book is fresh and inventive and uniquely hers, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is no exception. (Indeed, Bender has somehow become more Bender here. There is a depth, a maturity of craft to this novel that her previous work has lacked.)

Which is not to say that this novel is for everyone, because it’s probably not. But the story of Rose Edelstein, a girl and then a woman who can taste the feelings of others in the food they make, is one of the most beautiful, sad, and achingly tender tales I’ve read in a long time – a story of people too afraid to take steps towards their own happiness, and of all the ways they learn, slowly, to set themselves free.

Though we come to know Rose’s desperately lonely mother, her distant father, and her strange brother in and of themselves, it’s Rose who resonates. I understood her and saw myself in her, as I often understand and see myself in Bender’s characters, but there was never a moment I loved her more than when she creates a small, safe space for herself in a closet her employers set aside for her. (If you know me, this moment will make sense. That was the moment, mid-January, that I needed.)

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake might not hit everyone so hard, and it might not be the right fit for most readers. But this story about people finding something fulfilling, something that heals the wounds slowly and purely, because they finally let themselves see, was nothing short of a blessing to me.

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This book was published by Doubleday in June 2010. For more information, visit the author’s website, which includes monthly writing prompts, because didn’t I tell you Aimee Bender is awesome? If you’d like to purchase this book from an independent bookstore as well as keep me in cake (not really) as an IndieBound affiliate, click here. As always, happy reading.

FTC Disclosure: This review was based on a copy of the book that I borrowed from the public library.