I'm just going to be blunt about this. This book was weird. Easily read, sure. Well-rounded characters, yup. Plot, just plain odd. The story follows Rose Edelstein, who can understand people based on the taste of the food they make. She can identify ingredients and their sources in addition to the emotions of the chef. It all begins when she taste a chocolate frosted lemon cake baked by her mother that just tastes like sadness. I think this book had great potential. The story could have blossomed in so many ways. There were opportunities that I felt should have been taken that just weren't. The plot was occasionally left dead and empty when it temporarily had such promise. Just when I would get to a point where I thought "Here we go. This is about to get really good..." nope. It stopped. The direction of the plot would change or the time frame of the story would jump to another year, another location. It was very frustrating. Honestly I was torn as whether to give it two or three stars. The sheer potential of this book is the only thing that saved it from a two star rating. I found the story line of Rose's brother, Joseph extremely vague and frustrating. I'm certain that the vagueness was intentional, but because of it the entire story line containing the brother only detracted from the novel as a whole rather than adding the depth that it had the possibility of doing. Overall, I suppose I just find myself disappointed and angry at having finished this book without getting what I wanted out of it.