Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

34 reviews

nialiversuch's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Bullying, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Death of parent, Death, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Toxic relationship

kelly_e's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Title: Black Cake
Author: Charmaine Wilkerson
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.25
Pub Date: February 1, 2022

T H R E E • W O R D S

Layered • Delectable • Memorable

📖 S Y N O P S I S

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

💭 T H O U G H T S

After a few 'Read with Jenna' misses, I was hesitant to read Black Cake, Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel. With a little urging from some wonderful ladies in my online book club, I decided I must give it a try, and am so glad that I did.

Yes, it took me awhile to settle into the story, but once I was invested, I was all in. There's a touch of mystery to this character driven, multigenerational debut. The writing is precise, the structure is strong, and the characters are well flushed out. There are so many layers to the complex family history that really showcases the messiness that is family.

There are a lot of characters combined with shifting time periods and places, which came across as jumbled at time, and meant I often found myself needing to go back to catch something I'd missed. At other times, it felt slightly repetitive, and certainly longer than it needed to be.

One of my biggest takeaways was reflecting on the role and importance food plays in our lives. Food is one of those cross-culture, non-verbal ways of communicating with and taking care of the ones we love. Of showing we care. Of keeping our history alive. This narrative also showcases how betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, are passed down through the generations, and how it all shapes the past, the present and the future.

Black Cake is a journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch. I was left asking myself how this was a debut novel? Charmaine Wilkerson is a writer to watch and I cannot wait to see what she writes next.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers with diverse tastes
• multigenerational saga lovers
• fans of food in books

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"Question yourself, yes, but don’t doubt yourself. There’s a difference."

"More people’s lives have been shaped by violence than we like to think. And more people’s lives have been shaped by silence than we think."

"The people who love us the most have the power to hurt us the most too." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Lesbophobia, Abandonment, Homophobia, Biphobia, and Death

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Violence, Physical abuse, Murder, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Addiction, Hate crime, Pregnancy, Rape, Racism, Toxic relationship, Slavery, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Classism

Minor: Cancer, Colonisation, and Terminal illness

brittanylee0302's review against another edition

emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was AMAZING. It made me laugh, cry, gasp. I felt all the feels. Highly recommend, my favorite read so far this year. I cannot even believe this is a debut novel, it was so damn good.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Toxic relationship and Rape

briaarnese's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Sexism, Rape, Murder, Grief, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Alcoholism, Colonisation, and Abandonment

megghonk's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, and Biphobia

Minor: Police brutality

thecriticalreader's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I picked Black Cake as my free add-on because it was named one of the Book of the Month Club’s Book of the Year Finalists. All of the other finalists I had either read or did not appeal to me.

 

Blurb: 

The book begins with two siblings, Byron and Benny, as they meet together for the first time in years because of their mother’s death. Byron is a successful and famous ocean scientist, who has achieved everything his Caribbean American parents expected of him, yet who struggles with emotional unavailability and interpersonal relationships. Benny is an aspiring café owner who has not spoken to her family in years after they reacted negatively to her dropping out of a prestigious university and coming out as multisexual. They meet together to hear a recording by their mother explaining that her past is not what she has led them to believe, forcing the siblings to reconsider their heritage, relationships, and identities. 

 

Review:

Black Cake has a fluid structure: Wilkerson switches between perspectives, modes of storytelling, and time periods in order to tell her intergenerational story. Instead of being confusing or obnoxious, the constant change between perspectives and time frames serve the story well, as they allow Wilkerson to disclose information at a pace that suits the story as well as address the complexities and backstories of multiple characters. I found Byron and Benny to be a little obnoxious and childish at the beginning, but I grew to appreciate their struggles and personalities as I learned more about their backstories. I also really enjoyed learning about their mother’s history, which was full of twists and turns, and which painted a wonderful portrait of a strong, capable—although not perfect—woman and mother. The symbolism of their mother’s Black Cake recipe beautifully tied the story together.

 

Black Cake is divided into four parts, and by the end of the third part, I felt that things were starting to reach their natural concluding point. However, the book still had another part to it (approximately 140 more pages). As I read part four, I started liking Black Cake less and less. In the first three parts, the tragic accidents and serendipitous twists of fate served the narrative but stopped just short of being unbelievable. Unfortunately, Wilkerson overuses such devices in the fourth part, and the book lost all sense of believability for me.

For example, I was rather confused as to why the main characters were so afraid of retaliation from Little Man's family, despite it appearing extremely unlikely to me that such people would a) piece anything together and b) have the desire, decades later, to do something about it. Perhaps it would have been more believable if Wilkerson had showed earlier on an example of his family being excessively vindictive or clever.

Each improbable turn of events was too coincidental, too well-placed—in short, too fictional. 

 

The story seems to lose focus in part four as it tried to include resolutions for all of its characters, and Benny and Byron’s character arcs fall by the wayside. A couple of chapters seem completely superfluous, especially one in which a completely unimportant side character faces police brutality. The incident is only tenuously related to the main story and is never referred to again after that singular chapter. If Black Cake had stopped while it was ahead around the 250-page mark, it would have been a solid 4 or 4.25 rating for me. Its meandering and unbelievability toward the end, however, brings it down to a 3.25 for me.

 

The Run-Down: 

You will probably like Black Cake if: you enjoy multi-generational stories with complex characters, books that celebrate the diversity of its characters, and themes of heritage, family, personal sacrifice, and identity.

 

You might not like Black Cake if you dislike shifting POVs and large casts of characters. Readers who have a hard time suspending their disbelief when it comes to certain narrative coincidences and connections might also find this book frustrating. 

 

A Similar Book: 

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Similarities between these two books include:

·      An epic plot that spans multiple generations of a single family

·      Themes of identity, heritage, belonging

·      A main character who runs away and changes their identity

·      Characters who get caught up in illegal gangster activity

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Suicide attempt, Biphobia, Sexual assault, Injury/Injury detail, Cancer, Colonisation, Murder, Alcoholism, and Violence

Minor: Stalking, Rape, Police brutality, Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Murder, Xenophobia, and Slavery

annabulkowski's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Dysphoria, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Death, Cancer, Biphobia, Addiction, Rape, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Xenophobia, Violence, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Suicide, Slavery, Outing, Murder, Homophobia, Cursing, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, Classism, Child death, Car accident, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Sexism, Self harm, Racism, and Misogyny

neniacorcoran's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Toxic relationship, Biphobia, Rape, Physical abuse, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment

zwe's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I really loved this book. It was so beautifully written and the characters were you really care for. It didn’t take long to get into at all it’s so engaging at every moment. There were a lot more twists than I was expecting and they were all very well done and actually made sense for the plot. Byron annoyed me for most of the book but that’s fine everyone else made up for it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Grief

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Rape, Alcoholism, Car accident, Gaslighting, Murder, and Pregnancy

haleybyman's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Abandonment, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexism, and Toxic relationship