Aimee Bender

A sci-fi-fantasy family-relationships novel that follows Rose from being eight years old until her early twenties. She finds she has a gift/superpower/curse of being able to taste the emotions of whoever has made a meal to the extent of being able to place the factory where a processed food is made. For a young girl this is a disturbing superpower and she struggles to find food bland or fresh and untouched enough to be edible. Her brother, meanwhile, seems to have the ability to disappear. Her parents are often absent too and she is negotiating life without much guidance. It is an intriguing novel. I struggled to engage with the characters much. George is the sympathetic friend and seemed a good person and the owners of the French restaurant where Rose finds somewhere she can be are too.… (plus d'informations)

Was totally disappointed with this book. I feel like the time I spent reading it was wasted. I had thought it was a coming of age story about a little girl who could taste the cook's emotions in the food she ate. For example, she could taste her mother's unhappiness in a slice of cake, or once at a bakery, she could taste the anger in whatever it was she was eating that day. It sounded like an interesting idea to me which prompted me to try the book.

I ended up really disliking this book. It went way beyond the charm of a child tasting unhappiness or love or anger when she was able to idenitfy eggs as organic or cookies as coming from a factory in a specific part of the country. Spoiler alert ... if you plan on reading this book, stop reading this now.

The character of the girl had promise; but the rest of the family was a dysfunctional mess. It was hard to care about any of them. When it turned out the strange brother had "magical" qualities too, it was a bit much. Was I supposed to figure out that he would disappear into furniture because he enjoyed taking splinters out of his mom's fingers? Too odd for me.
… (plus d'informations)