Today is Cakes Day, and it’s time for a few books that will satisfy your sweet tooth. If you enjoy romance, poetic verse, and memoir, these five books featuring cake themes are the ones I recommend.
1. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
It’s a book about family and love, even when you know their deepest secrets. On the eve of Rose Edelstein’s ninth birthday, as she bites into her mom’s homemade cake, she tastes her mother’s emotions. Instead of the can-do attitude mom, it tastes of bitter despair and desperation. For the rest of Rose’s life, food is a fear and threat. She discovers secrets–her mom’s life outside their home, her father’s disinterest, and her brother’s clash against the world. As she grows up, Rose learns to harness this power, but even her own taste buds hide secrets.
2. Cake Pop Crush: A Wish Novel by Suzanne Nelson
A Scholastic book about cute romances and saving a family bake shop. Alicia’s dad has run their bakery ‘Say It With Flour’ for years. They need to find ways to bring in new customers. Ever since the new chain café/bakery ‘Perk Up’ opened across their street, it has been competitive. What’s worse is that the competition has an insanely cute son named Dane who also loves to bake. Alicia is known for her signature cake pops that she uses from her dead mother’s recipe book. When Alicia and Dane compete in a bake off, she can’t help but hate him. Alicia wonders if she’ll be able to bring honor to her father’s bakery.
3. We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Quinn Berkowitz and Tarek Mansour’s families have been business partners for years. Quinn’s parents are wedding planners, and Tarek’s are caterers. When Quinn confessed her crush on Tarek last summer through email, he leaves for college without a response.
Now, a year later, she isn’t prepared to face him again. She is tired of her parents’ weddings and having to play the harp. When Tarek arrives, he enjoys the flashy scenes of weddings while Quinn finds it all fake. They bicker and can’t really have a conversation, yet they are thrust into several wedding mishaps and situations, like rescuing cakes and running errands. When Quinn’s feelings start to return, she is afraid. But when Tarek explains his silence, this leads her to be vulnerable and tell him her fears. Maybe love can win.
4. Not Hungry by Kate Karyus Quinn
It’s a young adult verse that is poetic. June is seen as fat, as if it’s a bad thing. June also has an eating disorder. When she doesn’t eat, her friends and family sees it as a starvation diet, not her actually starving herself. When June’s secret is discovered by her neighbor Toby, she freaks. But she soon learns he has a secret as well.
5. Elena Vanishing a Memoir by Elena Dunkle and Clare B. Dunkle
This memoir is about seventeen year old Elena who is vanishing. Each day, fewer calories she eats. She’s a girl whose armor against anxiety is also against anorexia. She battles two losing battles. It’s a memoir told through a five year period, co-written with her mother Clare B. Dunkle. Elena explains her journey battling her two biggest fears while trying to eat with a spoon.
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