Monday, April 13, 2009

The Little Chocolate Cake

by D.M. Dickey from the April 13, 2009 issue

Tagline: The bride had no doubt her big sister, Jennifer, would make the right choice...

In a Nutshell: Beth is getting married and is so busy that she asks her sister Jennifer to choose her wedding cake for her. At the bakery, Jennifer realizes she knows the baker, Mike, from high school. They'd had home ec together. On the day of the wedding, Beth reveals that she planned for Jennifer to "re-meet" Mike, thinking they'd hit it off. She was right.

Observations: While Woman's World is a somewhat traditional publication, it was interesting to see this story go against tradition in a couple of ways. First, the heroine was older than the hero by a couple of years. Also, the hero was the baker and she was the semi-professional.

There was one part I thought was strange:

Mike arrived early at the reception hall. Jennifer greeted him, then went to help her sister.

"Beth," Jennifer said, as she buttoned up the wedding dress. "It's about the cake."

Beth turned. "No, Jennifer, it was never about the cake." She smiled into her sister's eyes. "It was about the baker."

When Jennifer brings up the cake as a topic, it seems odd, like something was edited out. Other than that, I thought the story was cute.

Woman's World Standbys: Matchmaker Relative, Shared History/Old Flame

Question: Notice anything interesting about how the author handled point of view in this story?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're right Kate, I think I can vote based on your summaries, because even then I still have an idea on whether the plot grabs me or not, is original, etc.

Cheers!

Kate Willoughby said...

Yes! :)

Kate Willoughby said...

Huh! Lazy bums! Not willing to tackle that question? LOL

The interesting thing, to me, about the handling of POV was that most of the story was in the heroine's point of view. But at the very end, it switched to omniscient:

And the extra-large version of The Little Chocolate Cake? Everyone agreed it was the perfect choice--for both sisters.This lends a somewhat fairy tale flavor to the ending, allowing us to withdraw from Jennifer's head and let her go on with her life with Mike the Baker Man. :)

Anonymous said...

Sorry Kate, bit confused, what question? On my screen the only comment I have is Yes!

Kate Willoughby said...

In the post it says WOMAN'S WORLD STANDBYS and under that QUESTION... :)