This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time! A good choice to read during black history month. I think the Caribbean people, the Island people have not been represented very much in history throughout the years. I know this is one of the very first books I have read about this culture. I'm so glad I did. I learned a lot and I will encourage others, as well as my students, to read this book and search out more of this information. I also was interested to learn of the predominance of Chinese in the Islands and the differences in prejudice, something I would not have expected. Great first novel from this author. I expect to see more from her! I loved the characters so much!

Black Cake is a fascinating story of a California family with a complicated past. The adult children are just now discovering their parents' secret past, which starts in the Caribbean and winds from Europe to New York to California. It asks, "How well do we know our family?" It deals with subjects like sexual assault and racism in a gentle and nuanced way. And it left me longing to eat the legendary Black Cake around which the whole story is centered. A great read for fans of Ann Patchett and Celeste Ng.

I struggled with how to feel about this book from start to finish. While I really enjoyed many aspects and unique perspectives of the story, overall it was too ambitious to accomplish all it wanted to. So many extra plot point kept getting added then hardly fleshed out that it just extremely frustrating. It also had a perfectly tied up ending that will probably seem satisfying to some, but left me feeling like everything was a bit too perfect.

I can definitely see why some people have liked this book a lot, and would recommend to some, but for myself it was lacking in many ways. I look forward to seeing what else Charmaine Wilkerson publishes, as I loved the international locations and characters throughout Europe, the Caribbean and the USA.

This book hit shelves last week and is EVERYWHERE, for good reason.

If I were to sum up this novel in one word it would be: SPRAWLING. Wilkerson casts out so many different characters and storylines, layers upon layers of family drama, and then manages to reel each one in with tantalizing perfection. For some readers, it might feel scattered. But I love when an author goes on tangents and, when the characters and settings are so vividly drawn, takes the reader on a journey - in more ways than one. I felt in really good hands with Wilkerson, trusting she would bring the story to a satisfying conclusion.

If you love family drama, and books with bon bon sized chapters (more of this please), Black Cake is a must read. So good, and deserving the hype!

Complicated family dynamics, when done well are my favorite kind of storyline. There's just something that draws me to books that follow a family and it's complex history. Black Cake is exactly that. It follows a family through multiple generations spanning many years and many complicated life choices. The characters come to life in the pages and gosh do you want to hug them by the end. Oof, what a beautiful story. Loved it!

I'm not sure if it's me or the book but after 10 days and reading 42% of the book, I'm DNFing it. Maybe I'll try it again at a later time, but I just couldn't get into it--too bored to really care about the characters if I'm honest although the writing was beautiful. I felt as if there were too many characters and that the author threw too much into the novel between the back and forth timeline, many POVs, characters, issues, and change from one locale to the other. It was just too much in my opinion and it also didn't help that the chapters were just so short and felt rather disjointed.


Thank you NetGalley and Ballentine Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

When someone from the publisher reached out to me about Black Cake, it wasn't an immediate yes or an immediate no.* I honestly had no idea what I was going to do, I thought it was a beautiful cover (even if I didn't notice the woman on it for ages) and the multi-generational story drew me in.

What ultimately decided for me was that it was a debut novel, love those most of the time, and my reading list is seriously lacking authors of color and I've been saying for years I'm going to expand my reading list. And holy shit y'all I'm so glad I did, this book took me for so many rides.

At its heart, Black Cake is the story of Covey a young Caribbean woman who flees her home due to her father's gambling debt who basically sells her to the local mobster. We follow her, her friends, and her descendants across three continents, so many cities and countries while they navigate relationships, social expectations, racism, and oppression. The meandering nature of the narrative weaving from past to present and character to character kept me on my toes and engaged the entire read.

Every time his mother made a black cake, it must have been like reciting an incantation, calling up a line from her true past, taking herself back to the island. (Part 4: "Byron")

I can't even start to cover everything wonderful about this novel. Every single character stands out, even those that barely appear on the page (looking at you Mathilda, and OG Eleanor).

Benny and Etta stand out for me because of their rainbow identity (bisexual and lesbian) and the struggles they faced on and off the page because of their identities. Etta's unrequited love for Covey changes the entire story and provides that "hold your breath shit's going down" moment at the end of the book. And so many of Benny's battles with her family and feeling isolated just hit home for me.

Ma was right about one thing. It was true that Benny's relationships had been complicated. People had a tendency to relate to only one thing or another, not to people like her, not to inbetweeners, not to neither-nors. This had been true in politics, it had been true in religion, it had been true in culture, and it sure as hell was true when it came to the laws of attraction. (Part 3: "Cake")

And Wilkerson's delicate handling of the explosive topic of police brutality and systemic oppression was so well written and emotionally draining that I read some of Byron's passages multiple times just to try and understand his experience (and the experience of Black men) when it came to law enforcement.

Byron wants to believe that this epidemic of mistreatment, this bullying of unarmed black men is just that, an outbreak, though prolonged, that can be brought under control. He wants to keep believing in law enforcement officers, to respect the risky work that they do, knowing that every day they step into unknown territory. He wants to know that he can still pick up the phone and call the cops if he ever needs to. There's a lot of anger out there. A lot of hurt. Where are they all gonna end up—black, white, whoever—if things don't get any better? What would his father say, if he knew that things were still this way in America in 2018? He has a fleeting thought, a blasphemous thought, that maybe it's just as well his dad isn't around anymore to see the way things are. (Part 4: "Byron")

But what tied all of the stories together, apart from Covey, was Wilkerson's writing and descriptive prowess. From the island coves to the character's emotions, Wilkerson pulls you into the story so you feel the sand on your body or the anger and rage rising at the same time it's bubbling to the surface for Byron or Benny. There were so many wonderful descriptive passages, but for some reason, this one stands out to me:

To say the vase was blue was about as imprecise as calling a person interesting, but everyone agreed that it was, at the very least, blueish. Benny sat staring at the waist-high object for what felt like an hour, pulling her gaze up from the mostly emerald lower border, through its rich celestial middle, to the pale aquamarine splash at the top, the flecks of gold and amber near the upper edge, and finally, part of the lip and bulge of the vase, which had been left uncolored, the natural, reddish tone of the pottery exposed. Benny contemplated the vase, then looked over at Joanie. And Joanie smiled back at her in that way that Benny would come to know. (Part One: "What You Don't Say")

It's not a profound scene for the novel, Joanie plays the smallest of parts, but the way Wilkerson describes this vase and Benny's feelings before and after this scene gave me such a visceral response that I can see the vase but I can't describe it in any other way than Wilkerson does ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In addition to her descriptive prowess, Wilkerson creates a universality with her characters that allowed me, a white man growing up and living in the US, to identify and empathize with many of the characters. She somehow strips you of your identity and drops you into each of the characters' lives—it's how she writes the settings and emotions, I'm telling you.

It wasn't that Benny didn't know how to stick to a call center script, as her supervisor had suggested. It was that she understood that one of the things that made you human was your willingness to deviate from the script. The problem was, scripts were like battles. You had to choose when to go with them and when not to. And you had to be prepared to live with the consequences. (Part One: "Homesickness")

This ability of Wilkerson's and the above quote really came across with Marble, she knew something was off and could never put her finger on it and when things started to slot into place, she knew the battle had come.

Recommendation: Black Cake is an incredibly beautiful and powerful debut novel. The journeys (because there are so many in this novel) Wilkerson takes you on are exhausting yet immensely fulfilling. As the story wrapped up I wasn't sure I wanted to know some of the things I could see coming, but Wilkerson made it so I had to know. Whether things would reach a complete resolution I was there for the complete journey and even though some things were left unspoken at the end it was incredibly satisfying to be on that boat for the final scene.

*I received a copy of Black Cake via NetGalley in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

Black Cake is extraordinary. A debut that I savored from start to finish, taking many breaks along the way in order to let each one of Charmaine Wilkerson's words seep deep within my very soul. The way she crafted this book, using short chapters in 3rd person to tell the incredible journey of Coventina Lyncook was simply brilliant. How one woman's life and her desperate escape from her beloved Caribbean island started a series of events her now-adult children were unaware of but are slowly coming to understand albeit a bit begrudgingly. The use of recordings from a now-deceased Covey tells her tale and proves how just how potent the meaning of the circle of life can be.

To say I am blown away is an understatement. The subtle nature of Wilkerson's writing kept me entranced as the pieces of Covey's life and the people she touched along the way fell into place in the most surprising of ways. Moving from past to present, we get to understand right along with Benny and Byron how and why their mother Eleanor changed her name. How she took on another's past in order to have a future. Why her sacred black cake was so important to her. And how they see in themselves the fierce traits they have inherited from her that might finally give them the life they both so richly deserve.

There are plenty of surprises as the aforementioned recordings keep delivering harsh realities that both Benny and Byron have to try and absorb as delicately as possible. But there is much pride in Covey's offspring as they start to realize just what their mother had to do in order to simply survive. How their own lives have taken turns they didn't expect but how much clearer they can see the whys of not only their own actions but those of their parents.

I have to reiterate that these short chapters really made this story come together better than I expected. There are plenty of important characters we get to know and it was vital that they each had a chance to have their sides told. Although we don't get inside their heads per se, the way that each chapter is narrated, we definitely glean enough to know how reactions and feelings made a difference, whether good or bad.

With a few a-ha moments along the way, I was beyond satisfied when everything clicked and Covey got her rightful due as the book came to a close. I know she'd be proud of her children and their determination to fulfill her wishes knowing how loved they were and still are by a woman they admire even more than they thought possible.

It's no wonder Black Cake has been optioned by Oprah herself. This is a gem of the highest order and is a book I won't soon forget. I am very glad I took a chance on this new author and happily give this superb story a huge 5++++++ stars!

"This is who they have always been, an African American family of Caribbean origin, a clan of untold stories and half-charted cultures."

Black Cake is a book about family -- biological and chosen. Byron and Benny reunite after 5 years due to their mother's passing and as they get to learn more about their parents' secret life through the recordings their mother left them, they also try to reclaim their closeness and set aside everything that teared them apart all those years ago. Along with this inheritance of secrets, their mother also left them a traditional Caribbean black cake in the freezer to be eaten when the right time comes.

In her book, Charmaine Wilkerson takes us on a journey through time and around the world. Narrated in multiple timelines in the past and present, we visit the Caribbean, England, and California through the memories of B and B's mother, and a few other places like Italy and New York in present time.

"She had discovered herself to be a dual entity, a sort of hybrid, someone who was both at home and foreign, someone who was both welcome and not."

The representation in this book and the portrayal of the immigrant experience were so well done. The struggles and hardships that B and B's mother faced when she left her Caribbean island are heartbreaking but not uncommon for other immigrants during that time. I especially admired how Wilkerson portrayed the complexity of tradition and heritage, as well as her depiction of loyalty towards your person and female friendship.

"Her parents had always told her that the greater your capacity to love, the better you could be as a person."

As B and B get to learn more about their mother and the person she actually was in her life before them, we as readers are also reminded that people contain multitudes. Parents are sometimes considered as just that and as children we forget that their lives are often bigger than us.

Black Cake has a lot to unpack as it contains a lot of different narratives that sometimes was a bit much, but it was overall a nice and stimulating read.

"The biggest moments of our lives are just that, a matter of seconds when something shifts and we react and everything changes."

At the center of this story is a black cake. This nostalgic recipe brings a family back together and is also a symbol of the individual identities of those in the story. Wilkerson’s character develop and story telling is unlike any other. Keep reading, the story develops in the most beautiful way. I absolutely loved this book!

A beautiful look into the estranged dynamics between siblings, Byrona ND Benny. After their mother passes away, they are asked to listen to a recording she made. Family secrets come to light and the siblings navigate their way through loss. A lived the snippets of young Covey's life, their mother growing up in the Caribbean. A five star read!

This was a simply fantastic book. I could not put it down. It grabbed me from the first chapter and held my interest until the very end.
Byron and Benny are estranged siblings who are brought together again by the death of their mother. They come together for her funeral but find out their mother has left them a legacy, a secret history and a quest.
The story weaves back and forth in the timeline but it is done effectively and seamlessly. The narrative switches between character POVs and I found that enlightening and easy to follow. It was good to be inside the character's heads and the choice of POVs for different reveals was very well done.
I found the description of the Caribbean homeland of the characters, the UK in the 60s and the transition to the US as their eventual home quite illuminating as far as politics, race, immigration, and views on the Commonwealth itself.
There are moments that are fraught and painful. There is trauma and loss. There are decisions made that resonate through the years and across the distance traveled by the characters.
The characters were well done, three dimensional, distinct, with flaws and virtues that made them feel very real. Conflict was dealt with very directly and I found the writing quite engaging.
I would highly recommend this book. It kept me interested, it broke my heart at times, it educated me, and it gave me stories that will linger.
Highly recommended!
my thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital review copy.

This book started out incredibly good for me and as the novel went on it just went south!
In California..Eleanor, a widow with two adult children has died she leaves Byron and Benny an audio recording of many things they were not aware of regarding her and her husbands past. It is a past that started on a Caribbean island.
The novel is set in two timelines and as it went on, there was just too much of everything for me.. especially when part four of the story started and kept throwing in more characters, side stories, and too many themes!
3.5

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing/ Ballantine Books for the ARC

My thanks for #NetGalley and #RandomHouse #Ballantine for the advance copy eBook in exchange for an honest review. Secrets and memories. Memories and secrets . . . how about secret memories? Estranged siblings, Byron and Benny, come together to settle their mother’s estate. Eleanor Bennett has left her children a recording explaining her life, at least the life they had known to be hers. The story took them back in time, back to the island their parents called home, back to a place Byron and Benny had never known. The novel is interwoven with several different points of view, several different timelines. It’s a beautiful journey through the Caribbean – and a painful journey through the Black experience. #BlackCake is an incredible book filled with the overarching theme of love. It’s an astonishing debut from #CharmaineWilkerson which makes me eager to see what they come up with next!

I loved this book! I loved how we get the story of a family and how we don't really know the people closest to us. We see the story of Covey after her death and all the things she had to go through out of her life. No matter what she went through her family was always first and she carried that and her culture with her always. This was a book full of emotions one that will stay with me after I finished.

Wow, Black Cake was good! Estranged Bennett siblings Byron and Benny meet at home after their mother’s death to receive instructions from her lawyer. Eleanor Bennett left behind a black cake in the freezer, with a note to share it when the time is right, and an audio recording for her children to listen to together.

The story Eleanor shares is long and detailed, filled with obstacles and tragedy — Covey, a child who grew up on an island and loved to swim, whose mother left her too soon, whose father made numerous questionable decisions. Covey was forced into circumstances unwillingly and fought for her freedom from these constraints in life, numerous times. It wasn’t easy and she was required to make hard choices.

This book shifts between the present day, where Byron and Benny absorb the story and process their tense relationship with each other, and the past, shared through Eleanor’s recording. I liked the Bennett family and I felt for these characters! I can’t imagine learning so much that has been left unsaid for so long, or being someone who felt they had no choice but to stay quiet.

”This is the thing about people, Benny thinks. You can look at person and truly have no idea what they are holding inside.”

Black Cake offers a lot to think about — There are multiple “what would I have done?” moments. Aspects of this one reminded me of The Girl With the Louding Voice yet it’s still a distinct, worthy story itself — 4.5 stars (rounded up)

"Black Cake" is everything I want from a book: an unanswered question and a tiny bit of suspense, wrapped in the incredible story of a family that jumps between the past and present day. Byron and Benny are estranged siblings who are brought back together after their mother's death to hear the last voice recording, and to piece together the mystery of her past. The traditional dish black cake is central to the entire story, and the key to the message and inheritance she has left for her children.

Utterly readable and unforgettable, this is a book I am recommending to every reader I know, no matter how casual or voracious. It's the rare combination of a book that will be widely and commercially successful, but also critically acclaimed. I can't wait to discuss it!

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books & NetGalley for a digital advance reader's copy. All comments and opinions are my own.

This debut was definitely in the "amazing" category and worth all of its 5 stars! It's a story of family, identity, and tradition, told from the points of view of several of the characters. The multiple voices narrating the characters' struggles, triumphs, and histories assist in bridging one generation to the next. As Ballentine Books' Executive Editor Hilary Teeman says, this is "a saga about a mother’s secrets, a family’s uncertain future, and the legacy of what we inherit through our recipes, our pasts, and often our untold stories."

The first characters we meet are brother and sister Byron and Benny in current day, as they listen to the recording their recently deceased mother left for them, narrating the previously unknown story of her life. The author adds characters and situations, locations and various historical periods a little at a time in each of the short and quick moving chapters, as one might add recipe ingredients which will come together in a delicious story to feast upon. Sorry, I couldn't resist the food allusions.

I really liked the way the characters discover their connections to each other as we learn of their secrets and how the novel all comes together to illustrate the concepts of home and family, longing, loss, second chances, and love. One of the most important themes that comes up repeatedly is risk, and several characters demonstrate their determination to take a specific risk in order to survive. Author Wilkerson explains that "Most of the characters in this novel are people who do not quite fit into the boxes that others expect of them. They struggle against stereotypes and the gulf between their interests and ambitions and the lives which other people expect them to lead, based on gender, culture, or class. Their difficulties are both universal and specific to the times and places in which they live."

Skillfully plotted and beautifully written, I couldn't stop thinking about this deliciously multi-layered story. I highly recommend it.

A stunning debut that was just chosen as the February book club pick for @readwithJenna and is already in development for @hulu by #Oprah #Harpofilms
This book is sure to be a hit. When Eleanor Bennett died it was said at her funeral that everyone knew a different side of Eleanor and that could not be truer. She left behind a mysterious tape recording and one more black cake to her children.
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She shares her tumultuous story of a swimmer who escapes the Caribbean island she called home under the suspicion of murder, starting totally fresh. Her children never knew her storied past, or that they have another sibling. Tied to her entire history is this Black Cake recipe, a treasured recipe that is not just cake but it’s love, history and tradition baked with sugar and dry fruit, but most importantly love.

"𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦'𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦'𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬."

Have you ever gone on a blind date? You know, one where you had a good phone call or exchanged some flirty emails (yes, I'm THAT old that I dated before the apps and texting but go with it!) and your hopes are high going in that this person could be your perfect match. But on the date, even though you like the other person, the conversation is awkward and you just don't gel. You might end up friends but they're just not the one for you. That's how I felt about this book.

There's so much about 𝗕𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗞 𝗖𝗔𝗞𝗘 that appealed to me - long-buried family secrets coming to light, a multigenerational story that spans continents, and interesting characters - but for some reason, I found myself disinterested. Maybe it's because I went in with such high expectations? It was a good book but I kept waiting to be wowed and I wasn't. That being said, I did love the author's writing and aspects of the story (I'm dying to try a black cake!), and I'll definitely read more from her in the future.

While this one wasn't The One for me, it could be for you, so give it a read. (All of my exes are happily married so clearly not everyone shares my taste!)Thanks to Ballantine and NetGalley for the copy to review.