Black Cake
Me, while reading Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson: “Why won’t Where the Crawdads Sing leave me alone?” This novel reminded me *so much* of Crawdads. Unfortunately (as you may know), I am not a fan of Where the Crawdads Sing. So Black Cake was not for me. But I’m offering up — very genuinely — that if you are a Crawdads fan, I think you’ll like Black Cake. Po-tay-toe/po-tah-toe and all that…if you give a cursory glance at Goodreads or just look at reviews of Black Cake, you’ll see that I’m definitely in the minority with this opinion, and that’s fine.
So why did I stick with this book? Well that’s a really great question because A) I recently have returned a couple of books to the library where after a handful of pages I’m like “nope, don’t have the time.” And B) When it comes to certain celebrity book club selections (Black Cake is a “Read with Jenna” pick): Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me what feels like 17 times, and when will I learn my lesson?!
Why, then, did I see Black Cake through?
Sometimes we lose track of what we *do* like when we don’t have enough experience with what we *don’t* like. This is true for many things, from the places we live, to clubs we might join in college or beyond, to expanding our social circles. As my mom always told me, you have to throw a bunch of spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. And this should be an ongoing process. #LifeIsAJourney
So I thought I’d try a book that everyone was praising. In the end, Black Cake didn’t stick for me, but maybe it will for you. I’ve been reminded of things I don’t like in a novel. (For instance, lines like “This is the thing about people…You can look at a person and truly have no idea what they are holding inside.”) And it makes me eager to dive into something that truly is resonating with me. (I’m currently reading Booth by Karen Joy Fowler, and I’m so excited to get back to it.)
If you are a Crawdads fan, then Happy Reading to you!
{PS: Here’s an old blog post about the push-pull of “to finish or not to finish” when it comes to books + an expansion of basically all I said above. And a little bit about Alice Munro.}
originally published on instagram