Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi

1.68k reviews for:

Gingerbread

Helen Oyeyemi

3.24 AVERAGE

neridah's profile picture

neridah's review against another edition

4.0
dark funny mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
If you're after a coherent plot, this book is not for you. Contains all the classics - complex intergenerational relationships, aphasia, exploitative child labour practices, death by gingerbread, chest tattoos.
booksdogsandjess's profile picture

booksdogsandjess's review against another edition

2.0

I wanted [b:White is for witching|6277227|White is for Witching|Helen Oyeyemi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328020246l/6277227._SY75_.jpg|6460728] but the library did not have but they had Gingerbread, so we went with it. If this is how Helen Oyeyemi writes always count me out.
This was a very pretty book, pretty cover, pretty words in pretty sentences but it was nonsense, there may have been a story there but it was thin and weighed down by the aforementioned nonsense and you almost felt like an outsider who had no idea what was going on and when the EFF would it be explained to you.
erinfoose's profile picture

erinfoose's review against another edition

3.25
adventurous dark funny mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
ninaprime's profile picture

ninaprime's review against another edition

3.0
3/3.5 stars - Pared down into beautifully-written paragraphs, this may be have received more stars, but as a coherent plot-driven novel, confusion caused consternation. I liked the part in the middle about Harriet's history best and the fairy tale-esque land of Druhastrana with haunting landmarks and creepy child exploitation, but remain perplexed by the causes of Perdita's suicide attempt, the Kercheval connection, and evolution of house hunters international. The ending especially was odd as Harriet suddenly falls in love with a random shopkeeper and inexplicably misses Gretel despite revolving her whole life around her. I wish the book had more of a clear concept or moral - maybe anti-capitalism and/or anti-gluten?
ericaomi7's profile picture

ericaomi7's review against another edition

2.0
I have read other books by this author and enjoyed them, so I was excited about this book. However, it was too meandering and just didn’t hold my attention. There were talking dolls and mythical countries and so many other things that I didn’t get.
spinesinaline's profile picture

spinesinaline's review against another edition

4.0
challenging mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
I think this one confused me more than the last Oyeyemi book I read. I'll need some more time to figure out exactly what I thought about it, or maybe another read through since she packs so many little details in the prose.

I do love the fantastical nature of Oyeyemi’s writing. Where Boy, Snow, Bird took inspiration from Snow White, this one clearly borrows from Hansel & Gretel, though neither could be considered a retelling. It felt like those fairytale connections really heightened near the end of this book, which is also where it got even more confusing and wild.

While I can’t say I understood much of the finer details or where it goes really off the rails, I loved the complexity of the relationships, particularly the focus on mothers and daughters. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

booksndogs4me's review against another edition

1.0
Made it to 25%. It is too weird. Life is too short. There are too many to many good books out there. I hate magical realism, and this book reinforced that.
philologer's profile picture

philologer's review against another edition

2.0
I chose to ignore the negative reviews and picked up a copy anyway, regardless of the fact that magical realism isn't my genre. I can see the talent and I love her imagination. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I didn't find this story hard to follow at all... I just didn't care where it went. As soon as I became interested in part of the plot, she would obfuscate it with more characters, more plot side meanderings. I'm pretty sure you could cut the 2nd 3rd of the novel out completely (maybe summarize in a page or two) and end up roughly with the same impression at the end. I will try her other novels!
amlohf's profile picture

amlohf's review against another edition

3.0
The plotline of this book still baffles me. Shifts in POV and even subject matter without transition made it difficult to keep up with events, and often there was a vagueness to how the story was told that made things even more confusing. I have so many questions that went unanswered, and I'm not sure it was the magical realism or if I somehow missed whatever breadcrumbs (pun intended!) that Oyeyemi left throughout the novel. I'm kind of upset about a sudden character change at the end. It felt so random. Everything in this novel felt so random but at the same time accepted as completely normal by the characters. It was a tough read at points.

But. I did enjoy the narrative that I could piece together and the ends that were tied up at the end were kind of satisfying. All in all, a bizarre read. If you're confused after reading this review, join the club!
ceallaighsbooks's profile picture

ceallaighsbooks's review against another edition

5.0
adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
“Harriet Lee’s gingerbread is not comfort food. There’s no nostalgia baked into it, no hearkening back to innocent indulgences and jolly times at nursery. It is not humble, nor is it dusty in the crumb. … A gingerbread addict once told Harriet that eating her gingerbread is like eating revenge. ‘It’s like noshing on the actual and anatomical heart of somebody who scarred your beloved and thought they’d got away with it,’ the gingerbread addict said. ‘That heart, ground to ash and shot through with darts of heat, salt, spice, and sulfurous syrup, as if honey was measured out, set ablaze, and trickled through the dough along with the liquefied spoon. You are phenomenal. You’ve ruined my life forever. Thank you.’
     ‘Thank you,’ said Harriet.” 
 
title: Gingerbread 
author: Helen Oyeyemi 
published: 2019 
publisher: Riverhead Books (Penguin RH) 
 
genre: literary fiction 
setting: contemporary europe & britain, & Druhástrana (Bohemia-adjacent) 
main themes/subjects: girlhood, class consciousness, lottery & luck—for good or ill—inescapable & inevitable, a lack of control over / choice in one’s life—especially when young, the intersection between fairy-tales & family mythologies, changelings & forever-childs (maybe as cursed?), immigration & displacement, found family, architecture & antiques: visually home, interrupted childhood, femme family relationships & friendships, overcoming trauma—or at least moving past/beyond, nationality & identity, connection across borders (physical, temporal, emotional, & imaginary &c.), closure, &—ofc—gingerbread 
representation: queer characters & relationships, Black main characters cast, immigrants, ND-coded MCs 
tropes: gingerbread houses, old wells, changelings, & other vaguely fairy-tale seeming imagery & themes, step/adopted [made to feel lesser? in a way] family members 
CW // suicide attempt, attempted coercion to have an abortion 
 
“‘More than friends, eh? More than friends . . . You know, my mother once told me that half of the hatred that springs up between people is rooted in this mistaken belief that there’s any human relationship more sacred than friendship.’” 
 
blurbs: “Both stunningly beautiful and breathtakingly original . . . [Oyeyemi’s] imagination, it turns out, is as boundless as her talent. Literary fiction is often knocked for being dismal and cynical, but Oyeyemi proves that it can just as easily be life-affirming, charming, and just plain fun. Gingerbread is an enchanting masterpiece by an author who’s refreshingly unafraid to be joyful, and it proves that Oyeyemi is one of the best English-language authors in the world today.” — NPR 
 
“Exhilarating . . . Gingerbread is jarring, funny, surprising, unsettling, disorienting, and rewarding . . . This is a wildly imagined, head-spinning, deeply intelligent novel that requires some effort and attention from its reader. And that is just one of its many pleasures.” — New York Times Book Review 
 
“Is there an author working today who is comparable to Helen Oyeyemi? She might be the only contemporary author for whom it’s not hyperbole to claim she’s sui generis, and I don’t think it’s a stretch either to say she’s a genius, as opposed to talented or newsworthy or relevant or accomplished, each of her novels daring more in storytelling than the one before . . . A tale that bears multiple rereadings and is more marvelous the deeper you’re willing to dive into its rearranging of reality, its derangement.” — Los Angeles Review of Books 
 
“A beautifully, wildly inventive beast. Nobody else writes like this: puncturing the timelessly poetic with harshly contemporary asides, animating plants and dolls with a cool nonchalance. And how is it that this dark, nutty novel exudes cozy warmth above all else?” — Entertainment Weekly 
 
A bit excessive, perhaps, sharing all of these blurbs, but it’s nice for once to see that I’m not the only one who loves, deeply appreciates, & acknowledges the genius in Oyeyemi’s works. 
 
“Margot had only one question left. In Druhástranian, she asked: ‘Drahomíra, my dear . . . are you by any chance Druhástranian?’
     She was answered in English, and Harriet held her phone away from her ear to protect it from the Maszkeradi trill: ‘Of course I am . . . I mean, aren’t we all?’” 
 
my thoughts: 
This was my first re-read of the first Helen Oyeyemi novel I ever read (originally in 2019). And, as is the case with any of her works that I re-read, this time around I felt as though half (at least) of what I was reading was entirely new. Her work reminds me of the fairy-book in Ella Enchanted that, every time you open it, there are new stories to be found inside. 
 
I see why upon reading this book five years ago I made it my mission to read every other thing Oyeyemi wrote & would ever write, a task I finally accomplished this year with her latest novel (generously gifted to me by Riverhead Books) Parasol Against the Axe (a novel that returns to the Bohemian lands & peoples in the form of many different kinds of Pragues). 
 
In Gingerbread, the action of the story begins in Druhástrana—a Bohemian country, sometimes on the Czech border, sometimes within its borders, sometimes on the coast, sometimes an island just off the coast—& mostly consisting of farmland & with strong rural sociocultural identity, that most folks have come to think of as either not in existence any more, or a place that was only ever imagined, & about which there is no common consensus other than vague understandings & unclear memories (sometimes even pathologized in order to make the ambiguity more palatable to folks uncomfortable with such things). 
 
“Read into that whatever you will,” Oyeyemi seems to say as she takes your hand, like Peter leading Wendy, onwards from one fictional fancy to another, maneuvering brilliant characters, via her idiosyncratic & stunning language, through relatable situations interweaving modern realities with childhood nostalgia, the heartbreak of familial, friendly, & romantic love with immigration & displacement among deeply multicultural communities, as well as dreams of & hope for a perfect, just out-of-reach future, or, at least, for some closure. 
 
“‘…Hang on, who started the “Are-you-OK” chain?’
     ‘No need to stress yourself out, Mum . . . it was Tamar.’
     ‘Me? I hadn’t said anything yet. Only joking . . . it was me, it was me. And I’m fine too. Goodnight.’
     ‘Goodnight!’
     ‘Night.’
     ‘G’night.
     ‘Goodnight . . .’
     And Perdita Lee, who had been counting the “goodnights,” smiled in the darkness.” 
 
i would recommend this book to readers who are willing to open their minds up to something totally original & appreciate a story on entirely its own terms. this book is best read starting in your early to mid 20’s-ish, & then again & again, every few years or so, forever. 
 
final note: &, as is also always the case with every Oyeyemi book I read, this is now my number one favorite again. Mr Fox (the second book of hers I ever read) is up for a re-read next so that I can write a review for it & then I will have published reviews for all of her books. <3 
 
final final note: oh, & please don’t go looking on goodreads for reviews of her books—folks there haven’t managed to normalize saying “I didn’t get it” & moving on rather than feeling the need to write paragraphs & paragraphs elaborating in embarrassing detail just how small their imaginations are, & how lacking is their sense of humility & willingness to open themselves up to something truly unique & literally wonderful. 💅🏻 
 
“Gretel’s musings over consecutive platefuls of gingerbread: Is there anything that this foodstuff lacks . . . is there any other food that so completely nourishes body and soul, any food more absolute in its embrace of the life-force of its eater . . . ?
     Harriet ate a piece of gingerbread and tingled all over. It was a square meal and a good night’s sleep and a long, blood-spattered howl at the moon rolled into one.” 
 
spice level: 🌶️🌶️ 
season: winter holiday 
music pairing: Czech Christmas music 
 
further reading: 

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