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. People had a tendency to relate to only one thing or another, not to people like her, not to inbetweeners, not to neither-nors. It was true that Benny’s relationships had been complicated.
And so many of Benny’s battles with her family and feeling isolated just hit home for me. 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. Every single character stands out, even those that barely appear on the page (looking at you Mathilda, and OG Eleanor).īenny 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. I can’t even start to cover everything wonderful about this novel. 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.Įvery 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. 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. And holy shit y’all I’m so glad I did, this book took me for so many rides.Īt 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. 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.
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.
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