There's Cake in My Future (There's Cake in My Future, #1)

by Kim Gruenenfelder

[Leah]

After listening to her closest friends’ latest travails in love, parenting, and careers, superstitious bride-to-be Nicole (Nic) believes she has the perfect recipe for everyone’s happiness: a bridal shower “cake pull” in which each ribboned silver charm planted in her cake will bring its recipient the magical assistance she needs to change her destiny. Melissa (Mel), still ringless after dating the same man for six years, deserves the engagement ring charm. The red hot chili pepper would be perfect for Seema, who is in love with her best male friend Scott, but can’t seem to make their relationship more than platonic. And recently laid off journalist Nic wants the shovel, which symbolizes hard work, to help her get her career back on track. Nic does everything she can to control who gets which silver keepsake – as well as the future it represents. But when the charmed cake is mysteriously shifted from the place settings Nic arranged around it, no one gets the charm she chose for them. And when the other party guests’ fortunes begin coming true, Mel, Seema, and Nic can’t help but wonder…. Is the cake trying to tell them something?

I absolutely loved Kim Gruenenfelder’s debut novel A Total Waste of Make-Up when I read it at the back end of 2010. It got me out of my Chick Lit funk and it was a fun and speedy read. However I was reluctant to purchase the sequel Misery Loves Cabernet mainly because from what I’ve read of the book Charlie doesn’t end up with any guy and definitely doesn’t seem to end up with Drew Stanton so I decided it wasn’t for me and I didn’t want to ruin how much I loved the first book with a second book that, with the greatest of respect to Kim, didn’t sound as if it had a happy ending. I hate books sans happy endings. They make me want to cry. I don’t invest in a book to not have a happy ending. So, instead, I picked up Kim’s third novel There’s Cake In My Future and I loved it even more than A Total Waste of Make-Up!

Whereas Kim’s first and second novel only followed one character, with There’s Cake In My Future (isn’t that the most awesomest title ever?) we follow three best friends: Seema, Nic and Melanie. We switch narrator after each chapter and each girl has their own dilemmas to deal with and there’s no character that’s bigger than the other two. The pulling point of the novel is undoubtedly the cake pull. Quite frankly, I’ve never heard of a cake pull until I decided to buy this novel. And I probably never would have heard of a cake pull had I not bought the novel! It must be an American. I say this with the greatest of affection (I love America and Americans and would like in Florida if I could) but only Americans could have a cake pull. It’s a brilliant idea, mind, and it makes the novel stand out as Nic, Seema and Mel don’t get the charms Nic expected them to. Nic wanted the shovel, Mel the engagement ring and Seema the red hot chilli pepper but Nic got the baby carriage, Mel got the chilli pepper and Seema got the shovel. And once some of the other fortunes come true, the girls wonder just what their charm means for their lives.

I loved that the girls were all best friends. They were so different from each other – Nic’s about to get married to the love of her life Jason and become step-mother to his (hilarious) two girls; Mel wants nothing more than for her boyfriend Fred to propose and Seema is desperately in love with best friend Scott. There was no repetitiveness to the novel and each of the girls had valid storylines that kept me hooked. I loved Nic’s storyline of her becoming a step-mother and thought her relationship with Jason, Malika and Megan was incredibly sweet. Mel’s was a bit different, as she finds out not only is Fred not going to propose but he’s actually been cheating on her (multiple times!) so she finds herself having to be single again at thirty. But my absolute favourite storyline was Seema’s. I love a good unrequited best friend love and I adored Seema and Scott’s relationship and was willing them and urging them to take it to the next level for the love of God! Each separate storyline kept me hooked and I loved how close each of the girls were.

I thought the characterisation was brilliant. Seema was my favourite character, because of her storyline, but also because she just seemed so bloomin’ sweet! I wanted Scott to notice her, and equally I wanted her to just kiss him! I’ve never been so into a pairing before! I loved Nic and Mel, too. I loved Nic’s approach to parenting, loved how she sometimes felt like the nanny, when Jason was out of town and the girls’ mother was away. And I thought Mel’s approach to singledom was downright hilarious. Speed-dating, internet dating, picking up men at the supermarket and Home Depot. Talk about totally nuts. I probably don’t have to tell you that I loved Scott. I wanted to marry him. OK, so I wanted Seema to marry him, but if anything unfortunate ever happened to Seema… I also though Megan and Malika were the cutest step-daughters ever. For once, step-daughters who don’t treat their step-mother like dirt. It was so refreshing, let me tell you.

These days it takes a lot for me to award 5 stars to a novel. There has to be that something special to a book, there has to be something that makes me go ‘wow’, it has to be a novel I don’t want to put down. There’s Cake In My Future ticks all of those boxes and more. It’s fun, it’s serious (at times), the characters are brilliant and the pages just fly by. Seriously, they fly by. I loved it, and every single page was well-written and wholly enjoyable. I hope my review shows that, I think you can tell by a review how enjoyable a book was or wasn’t. This review has been a breeze to write, which makes a wonderful change because lately I’ve felt my reviews are kinda stale (please do jump in and disagree!) but this just flew out of my fingers. This is Chick Lit at its peak and I was pleased to see on Kim Gruenenfelder’s website that a sequel Let Me Eat Cake will be out in 2012. I will be pre-ordering it as soon as it’s physically possible and I am praying and hoping Kim won’t undo all the brilliant work she’s done in finishing There’s Cake In My Future. Because it’s true, a sequel can ruin the original, and I’m hoping that won’t be the case here because There’s Cake In My Future was a truly special read.