Ever since I read a review on this I've kept an eye out for it in my library and managed to get in yesterday. I read quickly anyway and I wasn't feeling very bright so I read this in just over half a day with an extra half hour for going over parts I had read too quickly. The plaudits on this book were many and varied, but most thought this a wonderful, magical story written with exceptional beauty, I couldn't wait to find out if this was true. The Plot. What if you suddenly found strange things happening to you on eating food? An emptiness or hollow feeling hard to describe for anyone, let alone a young child? This happens to Rose Edelstein when ...  Read the complete review

I had seen this book around a few times while browsing Waterstones and was quite intrigued by it as I thought the name was quite interesting and I liked the cover (my cover is the bright blue one with the girl holding the lemons, not the Dooyoo picture). The fact that it was recommended by Jodi Picoult also caught my eye, as I have enjoyed a lot of her books. I ended up getting a copy at a book fair last weekend and thought it would be a good read for a sunny afternoon out in the garden. The premise of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is that nine year old Rose Edelstein suddenly finds that when she eats food, she can taste the emotions of the person who ...  Read the complete review

This is a strange book with a strange premise; a girl discovers she can taste in food the feelings of the people involved in making it. The girl's family is quite dysfunctional, they don't really communicate with each other and they are, none of them, quite happy. The mother is flighty and creative and is always starting new projects and never finishing them, the brother is brilliant but completely disconnected from life and the father seems fairly normal but is completely incapable of connecting with his family. With her "gift" the girl now has to face up to truths about those around her that she would really rather not have to deal with. She also ...  Read the complete review

Having just become an avid baker myself, any book with a reference to lemon cake , in the title, had to be worth a read. I was not dissapointed, the subject matter was intriguing, interesting and almost believable. It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to find other peoples locked emotions, trapped in their culinary creations. We all know that if we are not enjoying cooking or baking, the result is a substandard product. This book takes that premise to another level whereby the emotions contained in the food is so strong that it cannot be avoided making the product either delectable or disgusting. The first quarter of the book moves at a pace and then widens  Read the complete review