And the Two Winners of THE PARTICULAR SADNESS of LEMON CAKE are....

Well, it seems the winners of this book scored nicely. I just read yesterday that The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is one of Oprah's 25 best books to read for the summer! Congratulations. I see this book popping up all over the place, so it's getting a bit of buzz. I'm not going to make you wait a moment longer, the winners are...

Book Review and Giveaway: THE PARTICULAR SADNESS of LEMON CAKE by Aimee Bender. Two Winners for this one.

I love the cover of this book. It's my favorite color, aqua; combined with the lusciousness of the cake, it pulled me right in. The title intrigued me as well and I settled down to dig into what appeared to be an unusual story. Let's look at how the blurb on the book describes things:

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents' attention, bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the slice.


She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother--her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do-mother--tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose. Anything can be revealed at any meal. She can't eat her brother Joseph's toast, a cookie at the local bakery is laced with rage; grape jelly is packed with acidic resentment.


Rose's gift forces her to confront the secret knowledge all families keep hidden--truths about her mother's life outside the home, her father's strange detachment, Joseph's clash with the world.


Yet as Rose grows up, she realizes there are some secrets that even her taste buds cannot discern.