100 Days of Cake

by Shari Goldhagen

There are only three things that can get seventeen-year-old Molly Byrne out of bed these days: her job at FishTopia, the promise of endless episodes of Golden Girls, and some delicious lo mein. You see, for the past two years, Molly s been struggling with something more than your usual teenage angst. Her shrink, Dr. Brooks, isn t helping much, and neither is her mom, who is convinced that baking the perfect cake will cure Molly of her depression as if cake can magically make her rejoin the swim team, get along with her promiscuous sister, or care about the SATs.

• ISBN10: 1481448560
• ISBN13: 9781481448567
• Publish Date: 17 May 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
2.5*

I have "the mixed feelings", guys. There were some parts of this book that were endearing to me, and then some parts that had me shaking my head. But in the interest of positivity, let's start with the good, shall we?

The Good:

• The Golden Girls. It might seem weird that this is my first bullet point, but maybe you don't understand how much love I have for the Golden Girls. (May most of them rest in peace.) Alex won me over immediately by hanging out with Molly in a fish store watching The Golden Girls. What are you waiting for, Molly?



• As someone who has traveled (travels, really) the depression path, I think that Molly's situation was definitely well represented. Molly wasn't always fun to be around. She wasn't always a great friend. Because she was going through shit. She'd take some steps forward, and then take some steps back. It was all so accurate, and I liked that the author never painted this rosy picture of what depression looks like.



• I truly did feel a connection to Molly. Even though there were so many times that I just wanted to shake my head at her and say "oh, honey" (HIMYM reference, anyone?), I couldn't help but relate and sympathize.



• Molly was a swimmer. And we know that I am unabashedly biased when it comes to swimming in books. Molly even talks about swimming in relation to her depression- and both depictions were accurate!
  

  "I've always been kind of obsessive about grades and art class and big meets and stuff, but it got to the point where little things like having to pee when I'd already put on both practice suits could bring me to tears, and it just became easier to give up on stuff."

  
  


• Her family was present. Not perfect, but at least trying, you know? Granted, sometimes I wanted to smack them for some insensitive remarks, but... yeah, they were trying.

The Not:

• The Thing You've Probably Heard About. All the other stuff that I didn't like about this book pales in comparison to TTYPHA. I had people straight up ask me while I was reading to spoil them about TTYPHA, because they were so uncomfortable with it. So for you folks who want to know... Molly has the hots for her therapist. Which in itself is not abnormal. But he doesn't like the Alex dude, which threw me off, because he seemed nice. So I felt... funny. But then he is eating dinner at her house *red flag*, showing up at her FishFest (I don't remember what it was really called) *red flag*, and then kissing her *call the cops* and then trying to basically rape her *holy shit you guys, WHERE ARE THE COPS?!*, and then basically trying to convince her not to have him stripped of his license. *911* And for those of you who don't want to know, let's just say that the therapy was not handled in a great way at all, on a lot of levels. There was no redemption for TTYPHA.



• Slut shaming. Look, slut shaming is never okay, and in this case, it was just confusing because no one was doing anything that I'd consider to fall into the "slutty" definition anyway. Like, Molly's sister wears... clothes. Like, clothes a girl would wear in the summer to a pool party. And Molly and her friend Elle had a (vulgar) field day dissecting the sister.
  

  "'So seriously, what was up with V's hoochie mama getup?' Elle asks. 'Was she going cock shopping?'"

  
  Then later, continues with this gem, though Molly finally does moderately defend her sister:
  

  "''It's obviously her prerogative'- Elle is still talking- 'but it was like your sister was ready for a Girls Gone Wild audition.' 'I thought she looked kind of pretty,' I say, which is the truth.

  
  


• The cake part of the book.... I didn't think it was necessary? Ironically, since that is the book's title. And I am pretty sure that Cait is going to smite me or something for saying cake is unnecessary but... that's what I am saying. There ends up being a "reason", but... meh.



• Sometimes her sister was very insensitive about mental health, and flippant about suicide, which really pissed me off. Look, I know she is fifteen and all, but the gravity of suicide is not something to joke about. There is a line that, while I am not certain is in the finished copy (and I really hope isn't, someone go look for me) that made me mad and sad all at once. Molly and her sister are arguing over usual sisterly nonsense, when Veronica spews this abomination:
  

  "'With all her baking and worrying that you're gonna Robin Williams yourself, she doesn't really have a whole lot of free time anymore, does she?' V says."

  
  Well. Then. This isn't the only time V uses suicide to hurt Molly (she later tells her that she should kill herself so they can move on with their lives) but it is definitely inappropriate as hell. I'm not saying it's totally unrealistic that an angry fifteen year old would lash out, but it is a hard thing to read when it is in reference to an actual human being who ended his life. That is the part that upset me the most.

Bottom Line: While it isn't a bad book by any means, and was entertaining, some of the things that bothered me really bothered me, and I certainly can't overlook that. I think this book may be a case of whether you are okay with some of the things I wasn't okay with- and if so, it is a good read, and it does portray Molly's depression fabulously.

*Copy provided by publisher for review
**Quotes taken from uncorrected proof, subject to change.

[readingwithwrin]

Rating: 4.5 stars

"Honestly, there's a part of me that wants so much-maybe more than she does for her to be right about this. All those self-help books and empowering websites worked for her- they helped her get series about the hair salon and find a dweeby boyfriend with a good job, and live in a house that outwardly reflects the inner success- so maybe this could work for me too? Maybe there is some combination of sugar, eggs, and flour that can make me care about school dances and four-hundred meter relay times and college applications. If there is, I will gladly eat piece after piece every day for the rest of my short type-2-diabetic life."

Thank you to Netgalley and Athenum Books for giving me an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.


This is only my second book dealing with depression so I’m still learning about it and how it is written in books. Having said that I think Goldhagen did an amazing job of not only making you see how much depression had changed Bryne’s life but how it had also changed her family and friend's lives as well. How they had to watch her go from this super good at everything girl to one that dropped all her AP classes and stopped doing in extracurricular activities.

The person that we see this has the worst effect on is her sister. Not only does it make her angry but it also shows how she had to grow up fast because of certain things that she found and then had to keep a secret.
I loved how close of a friendship Bryne had with Elle and how even though Elle was really into being vegan, and saving the world she would change her opinion for a little while if she thought she could make Bryne happy or keep her from freaking out. Elle never lost patience with Bryne when she could have multiple times. She was a fantastic plan and even went along with Bryne’s plan to save fishtopia because she knew how much it meant to her. Everyone needs a friend like Elle in their lives.

Then there is Alex who Bryne works with at Fishtopia except instead of working they spend most of their time together watching Golden Girls (an amazing show if I do say so myself) and eating takeout from the place across the street. That is until the owner comes in one day and tells them that Fishtopia is closing causing Bryne to have a freakout and start trying to find a way to save it.
This was really nice to see happen because we see Bryne really put her all into saving it and she gets everyone around her to pitch in and we see her as what I assume she was like before she got depression.



I know I probably should have seen the part about her dad coming, but I didn’t probably because I was trying to figure out how her mom had all this time to run her own business and bake complicated cakes all the time. Granted she wasn’t doing much else besides those two things because she was terrified her daughter might do something extreme so it was understandable.

For me, the only reason I didn't give this book five stars was the fact that it had an inappropriate sort of relationship with an adult. I just wasn't comfortable with that part of the book personally.


This book does contain slut-shaming quite a bit which got to be annoying after a while, considering they weren’t doing anything to stop the person they were shaming from wearing/doing what she was doing when they could have. There is also some crude language at times, but I think this made the novel seem more realistic.

See reviews first on my blog