Reviewed by Leah on
When Annie Quintana was growing up, she was best friends with Julia St Clair despite their cultural differences – Annie was the St Clair’s housekeeper’s daughter whilst Julia was a St Clair – until a horrible incident tore them apart. Years later, Annie’s a baker desperate to have her own bakery so when Julia St Clair returns to San Francisco, nursing a secret of her own, and she offers Annie the chance to open her own cupcakery she decides to go for it; Julia and Annie may have had their differences but who turns down the chance to own their own cupcakery? As they open Treat, their cupcakery, it marks a new beginning – until strange and weird things begin happening, and Treat could be closed before it’s even really had a chance.
I was quite surprised whilst reading How To Eat A Cupcake at its dark undertones. From quite early on in the novel, both Annie and Julia talk about what’s to come, talk about how things may have turned out differently had they done something different. So rather than just being a novel about two (ex)friends opening a cupcakery, there’s an undertone to it that’s very readable. It’s perhaps not surprising who the saboteur is, but only once the novel gets to a certain point. It’s quite terrifying actually, reading as things start to go wrong at Treat once Annie and Julia decide to give the cupcakery a go. It’s nice, though, for a Chick Lit novel to have a bit of mystery to it. Nice that it has something extra to it to make it stand out more.
Really, though, it’s the characters who really make How To Eat A Cupcake a brilliant novel. At first glance you can make assumptions that Annie will have a chip on her shoulder about rich people or that the St Clair’s are just snobs who expect poor people to just do everything they ask, but that’s not true at all. Annie is a surprisingly relaxed character, she’s someone you can root for, and it’s nice that although she does still hold a grudge for parts of the novel, she is the kind of person who also just gets on with life, who is able to let someone back into her life even though the trust between them is questionable. Julia, on the other hand, does seem somewhat cold earlier on in the novel, especially due to the secret she’s keeping from everyone, but the cold is more of a front than her actually being a cold person and the cupcakery and the managing of it really helped bring her out of her shell and her business brain and enthusiasm was something else entirely. It’s like the cupcakery brought her back to life.
How To Eat A Cupcake is a novel you just gobble up. The warmth, the characters, the cupcakes and the dark undertones all mix together to create a wonderful read. Meg Donohue has really got the balance right with the novel and she’s an excellent writer. You wouldn’t even believe that this is her debut novel, but it is. You probably shouldn’t read the book if you’re hungry because the delicious cupcakes mentioned sound really, really lovely. The flavours Annie uses in her cupcakes, the fruit she buys from Ogden to use as cupcake flavours, I’d have liked for there to be some recipes in the back of the book for some of the cupcakes Annie makes, although my copy was a proof e-copy so it could be the finished copies will have recipes in, because that would be a brilliant addition and I’d love the chance to try making some of Annie’s cupcakes. The entire novel is just so wonderful, it’s a lovely cosy read and the addition of the cupcakes is just perfect.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 12 November, 2011: Finished reading
- 12 November, 2011: Reviewed