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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
I loved this audiobook. Read by the author, it’s meandering plot feels as though it is being told around a fire. Where not even the laws of written stories remain.
This book scratched an itch for dark/realistic contemporary magic that Magic For Liars left me with. Not a mystery in the classic sense, Oyeyemi chooses instead to leave the readers in the dark. Not just regarding where we’re going, but also where we’ve been and where we are. The lack of any familiar markers gives a weight to the emotional and relational themes that they might otherwise loose.
I loved how weird and wonderful this story was. I recommend it for people who want to get a little lost. For those who need a break from the certainty of reality.
This book scratched an itch for dark/realistic contemporary magic that Magic For Liars left me with. Not a mystery in the classic sense, Oyeyemi chooses instead to leave the readers in the dark. Not just regarding where we’re going, but also where we’ve been and where we are. The lack of any familiar markers gives a weight to the emotional and relational themes that they might otherwise loose.
I loved how weird and wonderful this story was. I recommend it for people who want to get a little lost. For those who need a break from the certainty of reality.
I think this is the only thing I’ve read that qualifies as “magical realism”. I’m not sure if that’s not my thing or if this was just...not very good. I was super into it initially (it is VERY whimsical) but then I felt tricked because like 80% of the story did not actually take place in that universe/timeline. There was a lot of allegory but I was too busy wondering when we would get back to the original timeline to figure out what it was allegory for.
This book was fairy tale fantastical, but let me a little incomplete at the end. It tries to put a lot of fairy tale elements into a bigger story about 3 generations of women, and while it's a good engaging read it's not as good as Boy,Snow, Bird.
“Perdita found it invigorating to hear about the people allied against her birth. She says she could get big-headed if she dwells on it, so she’ll just allow herself a moment of smugness for existing and then move on.”
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Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 3.5/5
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Okay, I just finished this today and while I know this is the kind of book that might need a while to sink in, I’ll go ahead and share my initial thoughts. I wanted weird, and weird I got. This is very fairytale-esque with a good bit of magical realism. I have to be honest and say that I spent a lot of time feeling slightly confused about what exactly was happening but I plowed on anyway, letting some of it fly right over my head and choosing not to worry too much over it. The story covers a lot of ground, hitting on class, race, gender roles, etc, but in a very abstract way that for me was hard to really grasp. I’d have to have a second read to fully appreciate what the author was doing here. It’s strangely unique and entertaining and wonderfully written; and for some reason I’m really craving gingerbread cookies now... 🤔
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Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 3.5/5
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Okay, I just finished this today and while I know this is the kind of book that might need a while to sink in, I’ll go ahead and share my initial thoughts. I wanted weird, and weird I got. This is very fairytale-esque with a good bit of magical realism. I have to be honest and say that I spent a lot of time feeling slightly confused about what exactly was happening but I plowed on anyway, letting some of it fly right over my head and choosing not to worry too much over it. The story covers a lot of ground, hitting on class, race, gender roles, etc, but in a very abstract way that for me was hard to really grasp. I’d have to have a second read to fully appreciate what the author was doing here. It’s strangely unique and entertaining and wonderfully written; and for some reason I’m really craving gingerbread cookies now... 🤔
What a strange little book this is; I half love it, and half barely finished it. It feels like a dream, in the sense that it floats and meanders and almost makes sense, but in a way that will be more and less meaningful or sensible when you step away from it.
Very interesting to read other people’s reviews of this book. I suppose it could be considered divisive in terms of odd narrative, pretty much all female cast, strange fairy tale twists and supposed mythical lands. But it’s those that are so deeply set into the landscape of our normal world that I love so much. The layers of what we know to be true and what the characters experience are not so far apart. The human relationships and interactions were refreshing, if a little idealistic. They were all whole and flawed and so interesting. Oyeyemi’s voice was captivating, the writing lyrical and including nods to the way stories are told in fairy tales, addressing the reader and going on stream of consciousness tangents. This was again, not boring or annoying as I would usually find it, because it was all relevant and only furthered the storytelling of the book. I couldn’t really tell you what it was necessarily about though.
This is a beautifully confusing book. Mostly it makes sense but there are just certain points that feel a little disjointed or like the author felt something was implied but it wasn't. Nonetheless I liked it a lot.
My most pressing question though: were the dolls really alive? Its going to drive me crazy for all of eternity...
I also found it really interesting how pretty much all the characters were black. I was kind of taken aback by it when I realized because when one thinks of gingerbread and farm girls they usually think of white/european types... or is that just me? Plus being mostly set in England kind of gives that implication too. I found it refreshing though. :)
My most pressing question though: were the dolls really alive? Its going to drive me crazy for all of eternity...
I also found it really interesting how pretty much all the characters were black. I was kind of taken aback by it when I realized because when one thinks of gingerbread and farm girls they usually think of white/european types... or is that just me? Plus being mostly set in England kind of gives that implication too. I found it refreshing though. :)
Just try leaving some gingerbread crumbs to find your way out of the forest of dreams conjured by this book—I’m certain you won’t be able to find the same trail again. And yet, somehow through Oyeyemi’s surreal fairytale landscape, the matryoshka setup of stories-within-stories, and the many trails of allusions, something special emerges.
This story wasn’t as strong to me as her other works that I’ve read, but there is still a magical spark and a wonderful unique charm to reading an Oyeyemi work. You have to allow yourself to get swept away by the strange elements of her story, like dolls actually talking throughout and no one thinking it’s weird or how some of the characters claim to come from a country that doesn’t really exist.
The absurd and strange in the book borders on magical realism and the best way to read it is to give into it. There seemed to be an interest in a storyline about classism and female power—the divide between the haves like Gretel and her rich-but-stingy mother and the have-nots like Harriet, the main narrator, who is relating her past to her daughter.
I felt there were many themes at play in the novel, but for me they never actualized. The book begins very solidly, but then takes a turn into the deep, dark woods (or possibly down the deep, dark well into a strange Wonderland-like world) and I never quite picked up the thread of what it was supposed to be about, and as much as I am here for the ride of weirdness, I still want what I’m reading to have a point.
The narrative felt amorphous and scattered, and though there were definitely moments that stood out as visually memorable for their strangeness, I found myself having trouble relating everything back to the main thrust of the plot.
Still, it was very interesting, and a pleasure just to get lost in the beauty of Oyeyemi’s writing. Her books are always an instant-buy for me, and I’ll be looking forward to the next one.
This story wasn’t as strong to me as her other works that I’ve read, but there is still a magical spark and a wonderful unique charm to reading an Oyeyemi work. You have to allow yourself to get swept away by the strange elements of her story, like dolls actually talking throughout and no one thinking it’s weird or how some of the characters claim to come from a country that doesn’t really exist.
The absurd and strange in the book borders on magical realism and the best way to read it is to give into it. There seemed to be an interest in a storyline about classism and female power—the divide between the haves like Gretel and her rich-but-stingy mother and the have-nots like Harriet, the main narrator, who is relating her past to her daughter.
I felt there were many themes at play in the novel, but for me they never actualized. The book begins very solidly, but then takes a turn into the deep, dark woods (or possibly down the deep, dark well into a strange Wonderland-like world) and I never quite picked up the thread of what it was supposed to be about, and as much as I am here for the ride of weirdness, I still want what I’m reading to have a point.
The narrative felt amorphous and scattered, and though there were definitely moments that stood out as visually memorable for their strangeness, I found myself having trouble relating everything back to the main thrust of the plot.
Still, it was very interesting, and a pleasure just to get lost in the beauty of Oyeyemi’s writing. Her books are always an instant-buy for me, and I’ll be looking forward to the next one.
I'm so excited for when she writes "that book" she was meant to write. this was good, but not great
How does she do it?
“[Her] trust was so severe that at the very last minute, possibly unsettled by the girl’s refusal to blink first, reality took her side.”
I’m co-opting this quote from Gingerbread to explain what it felt like to read this book (and other Helen Oyeyemi works): She writes with such conviction of her characters and her worlds that I can’t help but get completely sucked in. Dolls that talk. Yep. A girl with four pupils? Okie dokie. A country that may or may not exist? Yeah. A family legacy told in one long bedtime story, full of so many rich side-stories and asides that I forget I’m already reading a story within a story? Give it.
Helen makes the fantastical seem not only possible, but almost guaranteed, and her characters are so sharply defined and her humor so pleasantly surprising that finishing Gingerbread and coming back to reality felt like reverse culture shock after a wonderful trip abroad.
“[Her] trust was so severe that at the very last minute, possibly unsettled by the girl’s refusal to blink first, reality took her side.”
I’m co-opting this quote from Gingerbread to explain what it felt like to read this book (and other Helen Oyeyemi works): She writes with such conviction of her characters and her worlds that I can’t help but get completely sucked in. Dolls that talk. Yep. A girl with four pupils? Okie dokie. A country that may or may not exist? Yeah. A family legacy told in one long bedtime story, full of so many rich side-stories and asides that I forget I’m already reading a story within a story? Give it.
Helen makes the fantastical seem not only possible, but almost guaranteed, and her characters are so sharply defined and her humor so pleasantly surprising that finishing Gingerbread and coming back to reality felt like reverse culture shock after a wonderful trip abroad.