I may have missed the author’s intent in this book. I never really connected to the characters but the energy of the TV show Pushing Daisies with splashes of Alice in Wonderland did keep me turning the pages looking for that elusive moment. At times I missed the quotation marks that were nonresistant.
The story is divided into four parts. It is the story of a girl with a gift, from eight years old into her twenties. Rose lives with her father, a fact only lawyer, the fanciful mother, and the brother, Joseph, with his own weird gift. It is a story of a dysfunctional family with each person having a part that is just not typical.
Rose’s gift is the’ gift of food tasting’ but not just the flavor of the food, but the growing, marketing and finally the cooking. All of the steps it takes from beginning to end. She can tell you the local it was grown, how it was marketed, and what the cook was feeling it was prepared. This is not all good.
The phrasing was wonderful and I would stop and just re-read sentences.
‘A name so vague I never remember it.’
‘Out the window, the breezeless stillness of a desert spring.’

This book was very interesting and different. There were some plot twists that I didn't see coming and it kept me up at night till I finished it. It was a quick read and very enjoyable.

This book kept me reading...wanted to find out more. But when I put the book down, I was left feeling a bit let down. It was definitely an easy read...and would be good for a short month.

Our Book club hated this book. Too many unanswered questions, magic realism not explained well. Lots of holes in the story never defined or explained Thumbs down!

The book is a quick read, but goes nowhere. There was so much more character development that was missed. The book began depressing and never gave any hope for any of the characters. The author missed a huge opportunity to develop the family's special abilities and make the book interesting, enlightening, and hopeful. Two thumps down!

I enjoyed this book, even though it was rather sad. It shows how family members become isolated from each other because they don't communicate. For instance, if Rose had told her father about her ability to taste the feelings of the people who made the food she ate & he had told her about the special abilities he & his father had, she might not have felt so alone and they may have had a closer relationship. The book also made me think about how tastes and smells can stir up past memories and give you a feeling of nostalgia.

This book was so bad I couldn't finish it!

This book was fairly well written but seemed disjointed. It was a combination of two different sci-fi or fantasy ideas which both could have made good books. Ultimately it was depressing, I would have liked a more uplifting ending or at least something that made the time invested in the book worthwhile.

ok so it did hold me until the end, thinking, at some point the author will let me know the point of all of this. maybe i missed it! wouldn't recommend

Unbelievable in parts

If you are looking for a book to breeze through and enjoy, this is a great book!

It sounded interesting but I didn't get it. There was no point. I read this on my kindle and kept hitting the next page button because I was sure there was an ending to the book. Skip this one!

I liked this book. However, I was kind of hoping for a quirky, happy take on her ability. It was more of a gloomy take. It gets a little weird at the end, but there are some good discussion points that could be used.

I felt this book did not have the potential that is could have had.The author could have made the book much more interestingby adding a lot more details and following through more!

Liked the author's style of writing. She had you intrigued from the beginning. Was anxious to see where she was going with it. Kind of let down at the end. Alot of unanswered questions.

As a rule I'm not a fan of magical realism, but I liked parts of this book. I thought the idea of Rose telling emotions from tasting food was intriguing. Especially once she started cooking. There are storylines and characters that I wished were more developed in this book, and then there's the brother's storyline. That was what tipped this book into the don't like catagory for me -- that and the lack of quotation marks.

Not a good read. Silly and boring.

Started out intriguing, became disappointing. Ending was a letdown. What was the deal with not using Quotation Marks?

This book was strange.

It may be classified as "mystical realism", but it was too weird for our club's liking.

Weird. There were several themes which had potential but they weren't developed.

I really enjoyed this -- magical realism is becoming a favorite genre of mine. It is a bit darker than Sarah Addison Allen's books, but maybe a bit more believable because of that. The characters struggle with being different from everyone else--in a way that no one around them can really understand or empathize with.

Most of us, were pleasantly surprise that we liked the book. We all agreed that we enjoyed the way the author would " turn a phrase ".
Everyone had something to say about the characters and the choices they made. Great Book Discussion!! (3.5 stars)

I love the premise for this book but was a little disappointed in the actual book. To me food does hold so much emotion and passion I could imagine having this type of talent to be able to feel the emotion of the chef while eating their food. I would rather it had taken a little differnt turn. The storyline with the brother was a little too bizarre even for me. I do like the way the author writes and would be interested to read another of her books. Feel like a book club discussion would mainly be about what was confusing in the book and what we didn't "get".

I kept reading in hopes to tie all the loose ends and resolve mysteries and unanswered questions. I was left hanging in confusion. I just didn't get the point.