Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

About 380 pages

Eleanor Bennett’s family has been in shambles for years. Eleanor and her son, Byron, haven’t seen her daughter, Benny, in years. Including at her husband’s funeral…. So when Eleanor is determining her final wishes and her will, her biggest priority is to get her children back together. But when Byron and Benny are called by Eleanor’s lawyer, they get the last two things they would have expected, their mother’s signature black cake and a recording detailing family secrets. These family secrets completely re-write the past and leave the family reeling. 

Contemporary fiction has become one of my favorite genres over the past year! I think whether I like them is heavily influenced by my ability to connect and empathize with the characters. Charmaine made that quite easy in this book. I loved all of the characters and the complexities of their stories. I think she did a terrific job of meshing the past and present timelines. And everything was beautifully woven together by the end. The pace was a little slow for me, but that is my only complaint! 

Favorite Quote: “The beauty of a thing justified its plunder. And nothing was more beautiful than a girl who was fearless.”

I had the privilege of reading this book early through book of the month and I'm so happy that I chose it. From the first few chapters, I had a feeling that this would be a 5 star read. A lot of times when I think that, I turn out to be wrong, but I was delighted to find that this time, I was right. This book begins with the death of Eleanor Bennett, the family matriarch, who has left a voice recording for her two children Benny and Byron that reveals secrets that stretch all the way back to the Caribbean, where Eleanor originated.

This book was so beautifully written. I tabbed a ton of quotes that I absolutely loved throughout, and often had to close the book so that I could gather my thoughts before opening it up again. I think this book does such a good job at capturing grief, and different types of it. The grief you feel when things are unresolved with a loved one who is gone, the grief of losing someone you were close to, and even the grief you can feel for someone who is still alive, but you're not speaking with. I also liked how it carried the theme of food being a piece of home, a piece of your heritage, to the point where Eleanor Bennett's Black Cake became a character in the story itself.

As for the plot, it was really fun trying to connect the different stories together as everything fell into place, and I loved the parallels that were drawn between different characters in tragic but also heartwarming ways.

This has nothing to do with my feelings on this book, but I wrote in my journal: "Every character in this book needs therapy" and I stand by that!