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Gingerbread

Tekijä: Helen Oyeyemi

JäseniäKirja-arvostelujaSuosituimmuussijaKeskimääräinen arvioMaininnat
8263226,274 (3.14)19
"Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe. Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl; Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy; but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are. For one thing, they share a gold-painted, seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. And then there's the gingerbread they make. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it's very popular in Druhástrana, the far-away (or, according to many sources, non-existent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth. The world's truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread, however, is Harriet's charismatic childhood friend Gretel Kercheval--a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything (good or bad) that has happened to Harriet since they met. Decades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story. As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy, ambition, family grudges, work, wealth, and real estate, gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value"--… (lisätietoja)
Viimeisimmät tallentajatyksityinen kirjasto, sherryniles, amckie, Allie19, honey_bandit, ledonnelly, lizjenkins, DanicaTurcotte18, hugoprev
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» Katso myös 19 mainintaa

Näyttää 1-5 (yhteensä 32) (seuraava | näytä kaikki)
My library suggested this, and it was delightful! Thanks, Henry County Library! ( )
  ledonnelly | Mar 11, 2024 |
Personally, that was a baffling waste of time with a few nicely written lines. This one star is more "I didn't like it" than "it was bad." Definitely people who will enjoy this, just... Not me.

See the full review & more here!

Recommended: Not really, but some people would def like it
Stay away if: you like to understand what the characters are (human? fairy? are they even ALIVE?), or what they are doing, or what they are talking about, or what is happening at any point in the story

Go for it if you know you like magical realism that is very ambiguous and leaves almost everything up to interpretation. This might also be good for book groups or buddy reads, so long as you have people who are willing to talk about every chapter as you go to try to figure out wtf you're reading about

Thoughts:
My face 100% of the time in this book:


I don't have a lot of thoughts that are coherent, because so much of this story was a muddled "what is happening" for me. I can't even identify who was technically the narrator of most of the story, because it clearly WASN'T Harriet, despite it being shaded that way. Anyway... this was a struggle for me. I kept going, because by the time I realized it wasn't going to get any clearer, I was like 75% done and figured I'd just wrap it up.

Simple things are questions, that I feel like should not be questions:
- What are the dolls?? They're like, alive plant-doll hybrids?
- What's the deal with the gingerbread? Is it poisoned, or.. imbued with magical forces??
- At one point they said something like, when they arrived out of Druhástrana, they thought their bones were melted and they were poured out of a container like a vat of custard. I can't even begin to understand what's happening there.

So... maybe if I had been reading this with people I could discuss it with, it would have gone better. As it is, I feel like I would need to analyze theme and symbolism and read some analytical essays to even understand the basic plot of what happened. Frankly, I'm not willing to do that with this. I just don't do well with magical realism sometimes.... ( )
  Jenniferforjoy | Jan 29, 2024 |
I was very disappointed with this book: I really, really wanted to like it, but it turned out it just wasn't for me at all. I have a difficult relationship with magical realism overall, as it tends to be a little hit-and-miss for me, and Gingerbread sadly was a definite miss.

I was very confused throughout the whole book, and really struggled to understand what was going on. Navigating the shifting timelines and keeping track of the multitude of characters was also difficult and definitely did not help my confusion. I was left extremely frustrated by it all, and really struggled to get through this.

That being said, I loved the book's concept. The storyline was very original, and integrated traditional fairytale elements seamlessly to construct a brand new world. I also liked how the original fairytale was the starting point to explore contemporary issues, touching on everything from family and relationships to belonging, tradition, feeling "other" and so much more. The cast was also wonderfully diverse without it feeling obnoxious, which was refreshing.

Overall, this was a definite case of "it's not you, it's me". There was plenty here that I would have loved to love, but it just didn't work out for me.


I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. ( )
  bookforthought | Nov 7, 2023 |
This started out strong and then just got weirder and weirder, to the point that I lost track of the plot. I have a hard time even summarizing what happens here, but it involves a mother telling her daughter her life story, which includes her upbringing in Druhastrana - a non-existent country. The gingerbread the family makes somewhat ties things together and also reminds the reader of fairy tales, which this whole novel seems to be. ( )
  japaul22 | Nov 5, 2023 |
If there is a narrative thread here I've failed to find it, but I enjoyed pulling on the bits of loose string I could grasp along the way. A story so opaque I couldn't penetrate it, but beautiful prose and the occasional fairy tale reference I glimpsed thru the fog. This is my second oyeyemi book and I think it's my last, I just don't get it. ( )
  KallieGrace | Sep 27, 2023 |
Näyttää 1-5 (yhteensä 32) (seuraava | näytä kaikki)
It’s an intriguing premise, stitched together with fine and surprising imagery, and yet the novel as a whole never quite hangs together.
 
This “hallucinatory quality” within ordinary domestic life (signaled by the metaphor of “skeins” of yarn) is chief among the readerly pleasures of Gingerbread. It is also the shift in perception that the novel demands of its characters and readers.
 
Regardless of what lens you read the book through—for the political undertones, for the good story, for the fabulism—Gingerbread is a thrilling, gorgeously wrought novel.
 
Gingerbread’s more fantastical elements don’t quite obscure Harriet’s grim history, but rather package it in a way that avoids emotional highs and lows. Instead of delivering a harrowing tale of struggle and danger, Harriet’s saga becomes a bizarre story laced with haunting moments that mirror contemporary concerns.
 
“It’s a bit far-fetched” as the dolls point out, and a times Oyeyemi’s characters cannot keep pace with her luscious imagery. Yet Gingerbread is also grounded in the here and now and is spikily funny, referencing Tinder, Amazon reviews, Skype and Ariana Grande as well as conjuring a breathtaking fantasy landscape somewhere between Don Quixote and Alice in Wonderland.
 
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Þe forme to þe fynisment foldez ful selden
(The beginning and the end accord hardly ever)

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For Ella
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Harriet Lee's gingerbread is not comfort food.
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Englanninkielinen Wikipedia

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"Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe. Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl; Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy; but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are. For one thing, they share a gold-painted, seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. And then there's the gingerbread they make. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it's very popular in Druhástrana, the far-away (or, according to many sources, non-existent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth. The world's truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread, however, is Harriet's charismatic childhood friend Gretel Kercheval--a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything (good or bad) that has happened to Harriet since they met. Decades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story. As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy, ambition, family grudges, work, wealth, and real estate, gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value"--

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