A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister, Amanda, (aka “Demanda”) insists on selling their parents’ house, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.
Comment: I got interested in this book around three years ago because it was probably mentioned in some thread somewhere where readers were discussing characters with disabilities, whether physical or mental, and this one's blurb caught my eye. The main character has Asperger's and I was very curious how that would translate into a romance/fictional story.
Ginny is a young woman with Asperger's who has never been diagnosed but whose parents tried their best to help and educate. Ginny has always lived with them and ow that they are dead, this is the journey she takes into keeping herself sane among so much change.
Her sister Amanda wants to sell the house but since it is part of Ginny's routines, she doesn't want to let go of everything it means. At the same time, Ginny once more uses her coping mecanism - food - to deal with all the new things going on and through some recipes, she also discovers some secrets and grief hidden behind apparently normal behaviors. Can Ginny really cope and deal with what others want to label her with and what will that mean?
It was quite an emotional journey to read this book. I think the author really wanted to showcase one way others could see someone with Asperger's. What i mean to say, this is not a text book on how people with the syndrome act or live, it's only one of certainly many examples of how people cope and exist with something that obviously makes them different in relation to the norm.
I also liked how the author introduced the notion of "normal" because apart from scientific labels, "normal" is relative and it depends on how people consider it to be so. Ginny might not be "normal" according to society's standards but she is a human being, like all the others and she normal in he own way.
This is not a long story so all the situations are quite compacted into a very emotional story. We follow the grief Ginny and he sister go through after the death of their parents, but also how strong and lasting it can be, namely portrayed in another character. Is there a way to react in a "normal" way to grief? Is Aspie Ginny not as "normal" to react to her parents' death with her own personal coping mechanisms (by cooking and staying with their things in a closet) or is another character by sticking up for years with the feelings of despair and grief, not allowing any other feeling take root until something can't be undone?
I really liked the sort of inner debate many of the subjects addressed provoked. The story is not as simple as its page count could indicate and even the less interesting details are a cause for thought.
There's a little magical realism in this story, which I suppose was the author's tactic to make some things happen which otherwise might not be possible to see on the page. It also added to this feel of expectations, of what is normal, a theme constant in the story. At the same time, it was a path towards a certain plot move, which ends up being very emotional.
This is mainly fiction, yes, but some passages are very strongly done.
Ginny is a fascinating character. I could empathize with her a lot, even if my way of behaving would differ from hers. She is grieving, she is trying to explain certain things her analytical brain can't help but have and I think the path through self doubt, fear and change was very well done. The whole cast of characters offered something to the plot and that was good too.
I cried a few times reading this, some scenes really touched me but since finishing I'm thinking the tone was a little too depressive, I think this story lacked a more positivism to balance the not so easy things to read about. There's also a situation I found offered no closure and since it was mentioned so many times by characters, I think it's a negative element.
I think this was an interesting hidden gem and I'm glad I was able to know about it to read but yes, some things are a little too despairing. Thankfully Ginny sees things differently from most people and she could learn something about herself in the process.
Grade: 7/10
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