The Magic of Love, Heartbreak, Loss and Transformation

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender intrigued me from the start. It is about the magic of love, heartbreak, loss and transformation; making sense out of the complexities of life and relationships. The main character, Rose Edelstein, discovers she has a cursed gift of discovering hidden knowledge of people and their emotions revealed through the extrasensory perception in her taste buds. She kneels, offering ‘thank yous’, before a vending machine dispensing factory food that she can subsist on, while her brilliant brother finds his way into another universe. While fantastical, this story is grounded and the characters heartbreakingly real. Rose suffers with the knowledge her gift gives to her, but through it all she endures and matures. Although emotionally wrenching throughout the story, it is in the end uplifting.