Eleven-year-old Cadence has a Talent for baking cakes -- she can look at a person and know exactly how to make the kind of cake they would like best. Cady is an orphan, despite the fact that she lives with a woman whose Talent is matching orphans to their perfect families. Cady's past is more mysterious than most, however, and it will take a special train of circumstances, involving a prankster, a Talent thief, a peanut butter factory, a powder-blue suitcase, and more before everyone in the story ends up exactly where they are supposed to be.
This book reminded me inevitably of Savvy by Ingrid Law, what with the special Talents that many of the characters possess. The author did many things well, particularly telling the story from multiple distinct viewpoints and taking a convoluted plot and bringing all of the elements together in the end. There are also delicious-sounding cake recipes interspersed -- that, and the folksy quirkiness reminded me at times of Pie by Sarah Weeks. I thought this was a good story, though not (at least for this reader) a great one.
(Reviewed from a copy borrowed through my library system.)
My mother/daughter bookclub will be reading this one in January. I'm really hoping the girls will like this one, I enjoyed it a lot. I'm a little worried about how well some of them will deal with all the different character POVs. One has little patience with plot, she's all for action and just forget character development. Another is easily distracted, but I think she'll really like this book if she can stay focused enough to remember the story.
ReplyDeleteI think they'll like the quirkyness of the plot. A few months ago we read Oggie Cooder by Sarah Weeks, that was one of their favorite books so far. Her books seem to be pretty awesome.