Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I thought the idea of a magic baker who could infuse emotion into her creations, and thus influence people in numerous magical ways was an excellent idea. Alas--reading the synopsis of this book was like watching a great movie preview, then discovering that the only good parts were IN the preview! I thought the premise of this story was a great one with so many possibilities, but the hope for a story which would explore this theme barely lasted past the first chapter. Then, things took a U-turn into . . . something else. I'm not sure what else, exactly. I read a great deal of fantasy, so I know there are many ways to interpret that term, and I suppose that technically this is fantasy, since the plot is certainly fantastical. But not in a good way. We get a hint of fairy tale themes, but they seem to serve no purpose in the plot, and go absolutely nowhere. We get lots of unnecessary and gratuitous scenes of violence against the heroine of the story, which again, serve no purpose in the plot. Then (spoiler alerts to follow!), the heroine's skin mysteriously turns bright crimson red, and I went from wondering 'what the hell?' to going 'Oh, hell no!!' It's important for me to be able to identify with a character, and that little detail (which also turns out to have no explanation, and serves no purpose in the plot) lost me. From then on, my interest in the story was diminished, but curiosity as to where this mishmash of ideas could possibly be going kept me reading, hoping that Ms. Holmberg was somehow going to pull all of this together in some coherent way. Alas again--not so much. The conclusion took a u-turn away from magic and even true fantasy into a pseudo-metaphysical place that made no sense whatsoever. It was like two completely diverse genres of thought merged, hoping to create something profound and thought-provoking, and instead went seriously wrong. It's just difficult to understand what the author was thinking when she took the premise of the beginning, and the strangeness of the ending, and thought that they could go together to create a coherent narrative. Instead, this is two different stories that should never have been put together. The only thing that really made sense to me was the title--the premise is sweet, but the progression of this tale becomes increasingly bitter as it progresses to it's bizarre ending. I see a lot of readers saw something more in this one, but sorry, I thought it was pretty dreadful.