Reviews

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

lora2295's review

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emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

spiderfelt's review against another edition

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3.0

The Peculiar Ability to Sense Feelings would be both a spoiler and a description of this book. Sadly, this is not revealed until the very end. I don't have any issues with the structure, but the supporting characters became irrelevant. 

mimikins34's review

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1.0

Uhh I don’t know what I just read. I really thought this would be more interesting.


Note: I was consistently hung up on the lack of quotation marks for any dialogue


Spoiler: wtf… her brother turned into a chair?

tess_me's review

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

4.5

Loved the prose and concept, but I wish the brother's abilities and connection to the chair/family lore had been explored a bit further

elliejane002's review

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.25

kerinl's review

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3.0

Strange ending. Otherwise easy to read and entertaining.

sarah_sedai_blueajah's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

coughdrops's review against another edition

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emotional medium-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

5.0

daffodilcherry's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

The only person I could see enjoying this book is someone who wants to read a bland story about very tame drama of a nuclear, middle class American, suburbian family, with a very small hint of magical realism. My negative review follows: 

The concept of this book was interesting, a girl suddenly develops the ability to taste emotions in food pertaining to the person who made the food. I've never seen absolutely nothing done with an interesting concept. The main character, Rose, is so annoying and passive. She is uncurious, boring and uninspiring as a protagonist. Instead of using the emotion tasting as a way to start any action, to show how children can misunderstand nuances of adult situations, Rose just... Eats processed foods. Don't get me wrong, the one star is because I enjoyed the food descriptions, but the nothingness of the concept was very boring. 

It's then revealed that Joseph also has a gift. I think it is that he
can transform into furniture,
idk it's never properly explained. I don't know that the metaphor or reason for it was. He was also autistic coded but they never used the "a" word or anything. 

I did not care about how the dad never entered a hospital. I did not care about any of the flashbacks or family stories because if you heard about it once you heard about it five times. Like the processed food Rose liked, everything that happened to the family was bland and painfully suburbian without any sense of place or time. By half way through the book I had increased the speed to an insane 2.5 times just to get through it. The author/narrator didn't bring much to the table. 

hgullegrogan's review

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3.0

3.5 stars
This book has a Maruki Hurakami feel in its otherworldly plot. I am surprised with how moved I felt by the ending. But, I feel as if the author was trying to tell me more than I gleaned.