Rating: 
Summary: What A Pleasant Book!!!
Review: Eat Cake was a very enjoyable book for me. I like
books that tell of family situations, and this was a great one.
The words seemed to flow very gently, making it easy to read and
understand.
Ruth is a modern-day housewife whose favorite hobby is to bake cakes. Her family almost gets to the point of being sick of all cakes. But still she bakes them.
When her husband loses his job at the hospital, she is urged to help out and sell her cakes for an income. Basically,
this becomes a family business with everyone helping out. I
especially liked the addition of the recipes, that were used, in
the book.
I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and plan on reading this author's other books. I give Eat Cake five stars.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful confection from a very talented author.
Review: "Eat Cake" is the third thoroughly charming book from the wonderful Jeanne Ray. Each of her books has featured two main themes. One is that everyone should find a vocation or a passion in life, such as selling flowers, tap dancing, or in this case, baking sumptuous cakes. Ray also explores the theme of how people fall in and out of love.Ruth Hopson, the main character in "Eat Cake," is a primo baker. Her family wishes that she would stop baking already, since they are up to their ears in cakes. Suddenly, Ruth's husband, Sam, loses his job, and the family is seriously strapped for cash. Ruth's mother, Hollis, lives with her. Hollis is mortified when her long-long husband, an irresponsible drifter who plays piano in lounges, shows up at his daughter's house to recuperate from a freak accident. Hollis has no desire to live with her despised husband under one roof. Jeanne Ray takes all of these ingredients and mixes them up into a delicious souffle. The comic exchanges between the characters are priceless. Ray beautifully depicts how the members of this family slowly begin to look at one another in a new light. She demonstrates how we take our relatives for granted until we realize how precious and indispensable they really are. An added treat, for those who love to bake, is the section in the back of the book that is chock full of cake recipes. For a pleasant read that will tickle your funny bone and make you ravenous for a delicious piece of cake, pick up this enchanting novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh puleeeaze!
Review: I am really surprised how many people really enjoyed this book... i spent the entire time reading it rolling my eyes at the author's congratualatory satisfaction with her characters... the protagonist's cakes are BELOVED by everyone... they are the most delicious cakes ever tasted by ANYONE (even though her family is sick of the idea of cake at first bite they LOVE them all over again)... all people love all of her cakes regardless of flavor or personal preference... it would be understandable if there were some mystical/magical element to this book (like in Chocolat) but no, we are just supposed to believe that she is the BEST baker ever... you'll love her sweet potato cake... you'll love her expresso... try her cardboard cake.. im sure its divine! ... and by the way her parents are great too... they may be cranky but they are the BEST musical duo EVER... they as elderly people get paid hand over fist to perform in the fanciest hotel lobbies... brilliant! i cant get enough of elderly people singing either... its easy to imagine how that would be true !
... and her daughter... well she is the MOST beautiful and self confident teenager in the history of time...(sure she's a little cranky... but shes a teenager after all... dont even get me going on her business saavy.... shes brilliant!
[end sarcastic rant]
no... this book was tedious and unbelievable... it wanted to mix perfection with quirkiness and thats a combo that just doesnt work.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read
Review: I discovered Ms. Ray before I started reading her daughter's books, Ms. Ann Patchett. I'm not sure how I found her, just something about the premise of Julie and Romeo struck a cord, so I read it and enjoyed it so much. Well, then I read her second novel and enjoyed it also, so I was thrilled when this showed up on my amazon recommendations. I curled up with this book and read it in one day, with very few interruptions, and I was so involved with the characters, that by the end of the book, I felt as if I knew them. This is a fun, hopeful read and had some lines in it that I quoted out loud to the family, much to their dismay, since I then had to explain who everyone was and what was going on.
Anyway, read this book when you need a warm, lovely diversion from your life. The main character sees herself in cakes to relieve stress, I used this author's book as my therapy. Thank you Ms. Ray.
Rating:
Summary: Audiobook was WONDERFUL!
Review: I enjoyed listening to this audiobook so very much. In fact, it was an inspiration to me, as I have recently opened my own online store called Books and Stitches (cloth book covers). I listened to this audiobook while stitching up many covers for a craft fair. I was feeling a little discouraged, and then this little gem of a book cheered me up and urged me on to DO IT! And I did, and still am doing it, successfully! I have to credit this audiobook for that!
It is a great read. Get it. Listen to it. Be encouraged!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful author, delightful book
Review: I first read 'Step, Ball, Change' by this author by random chance - I normally prefer suspense or mystery books. However, Jeanne Ray's style of writing, infused with a light humor and endearing characters, hooked me immediately. This book, 'Eat Cake,' is even more charming than that (her second) book. The characters and situations are realistic and so imaginatively-described that they are completely believable and comfortable. They sometimes border on the slightly absurd, which - rather than making them unbelievable - only adds to the humor and realism and makes me so glad Ms. Ray is sharing them with us. I've never been a great baker or felt 'at peace' while baking, but Ms. Ray's descriptions of this cake-loving woman allowed me to feel and share her love, at least while reading the book. I was truly sad when I finished the book, knowing that I would not be able to spend more time with this cake-lover and her quirky family. Best book I've read in a long time. I can't wait to read more by this author!
Rating: 
Summary: So entertaining, yet touched my soul
Review: I really just stumbled into Jeanne Ray and now that I've almost finished her third novel, I'm actually sad. I need more Jeanne Ray novels in my life. This novel touched my heart, it reminded me of life's possibilities and that change often just happens. It taught me about making the best of the talents at hand. I loved the stable marriage of Ruth and her husband. I'm recommending this book and its author to all my girlfriends.
Rating:
Summary: Chaos reawakens love
Review: It was interesting to be nearly finished with this book when I watched the movie "Big Fish" last night. They both contain a lot of the same feelings about the fathers in the story and the wonder of families and work they require if life within them is to be fully lived. Jeanne Ray is wonderful at making her characters both lovable and fascinating. I loved the occasional wise counsel of the physical therapist (nurse?) as she expanded character's horizons of what they could accomplish.
My daughter made the carrot cake from the recipes in the back of the book, and it was delicious.
Rating:
Summary: In a word -- yum!
Review: Reading this book is like munching on cake -- homemade cake, not too sweet, with just the right amount of icing. The pages turn quickly and you begin to relax and feel good about the world. And you're tempted: can you get another piece later? The book's opening is a winner. Ruth, attending a stress clinic, encounters the common exercise to take yourself to a safe place. She has trouble at first but soon realizes her safe space is right inside a warm Bundt cake. Makes me hungry just thinking about it! Ruth's life is about baking cakes -- from scratch. She bakes to relax. She bakes to win friends. She bakes -- well, to bake! And ultimately baking is what saves her and her family batches of trouble. Her husband's job disappears in a merger. Her father, wrists broken, comes to stay awhile. Her daughter is being a typical teenager. And under the same roof is her mother who hisses and spits like a cat at the sight of her ex-husband, Ruth's father. Now, Ruth realizes, she really needs those stress classes. Instead, she finds inspiration from her father's physical therapist, a character the dust jacket compares to Cheryl Richardson, and her father himself. Ruth begins a new venture and that's where the book gets a little heavy on the icing. Ruth is immensely gifted, but talent is not enough, whether you're a baker or a writer. Miraculously, everyone in Ruth's family -- as well as the helpful physical therapist -- contributes a skill or connection to the enterprise. Plausible? Yes. The author of Girls with the Grandmother Faces published her first book with the help of her family, around her own kitchen table. Lucky? Also yes. In some families the parents would be whiny wet blankets, the daughter a teen pregnancy waiting to happen and the college-age son a delinquent. I must admit I'm a little biased against books that present starting a business as nearly effortless. However, sometimes you want to enjoy a cake and forget the calories. And sometimes you want to enjoy a well-written feel-good story where the fairy godmother is a composite of most of the folks in the heroine's life and it takes six months, not a wave of the wand, to move the reader to a happy ending.
Rating:
Summary: All about following your passion
Review: Ruth and Sam have gone through life doing what they needed to do--he working as a hospital administrator and she taking care of hearth, home, and children. Things become more complicated as their son goes to college, their daughter becomes an uncommunicative teenager, and her mother moves in with them. A crisis occurs when Sam loses his job and Ruth's father, who has been estranged from her mother for many years, injures himself and asks to come live with Ruth and Sam. Ruth's parents can hardly stand to be in the same room together, which makes meals and other family occasions a little difficult. When things get really bad, Ruth pretends that she is inside a cake which seems to calm her down. Baking a cake is even better, although her family begs her to quit feeding them her baked goods when they feel overstuffed. Sam does not seem to be making any progress towards getting a job and becomes enamored with the idea of buying a boat and fixing it up. Ruth's mother, ever the practical one, thinks that Sam is just being idle, while her father, the dreamer, encourages Sam to follow his dream. This book is all about following your passions, in middle age and beyond, and turning them into something special. Although her first two books were better than this one, Jeanne Ray again writes a delightful novel with wonderful dialogue and characters. I was disappointed to read in an interview that Ray says that this is her last book and I sincerely hope she reconsiders and continues writing.
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