Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - Cursed Bread

This might be my FAVORITE book of 2024 and we're only 3 weeks in. A lot of other reviews state that this book was "vibes only" with no plot, and like if you can't appreciate good literature just say so. Cursed Bread is a story of a woman sick with desire who wants to consume a beautiful newcomer and her husband who just settled in their small French village a few years post WW2.

This story was inspired by a true series of events, and Sophie does a magical job of making you feel like you're reading personal accounts from those days. Writing in first person usually reads as lazy and sloppy to me. It's very rare that first person narrative is done truly well, and Cursed Bread is that exception. You feel like you are reading the personal journal of a woman going slowly mad with boredom, lust, jealousy, and disgust. I highly, highly recommend. I will be thinking about this book for years.

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jennikreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

4.0

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gibetal's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

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parchment_and_papyrus's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

What have I just read?!

Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh follows the inner world of Elodie, the bakers wife, recounting the bizarre and mysterious circumstances that surround the summer of 1951. In the present Elodie is visited by 2 policemen and through her inner musings and letters she shares with us what she won’t tell the police. That she became obsessed with two new residents of her village, that she heard and saw things that no-one else did, that she knew what led to a series of bizarre and fatal events affecting the residents of the town.

Elodie’s inner world is disturbed and contradictory. A deeply unsatisfied individual navigating a parochial world. Intoxicated by new things, by possibility, by any experience that will alter the monotony of her existence.

Mackintosh expertly pieces together the provincial French life and the surreal reality of a warped mind, you’re never quite sure whether something is real or Elodie’s construction. Whether it’s a hallucination, a day dream or a mysterious circumstance. You don’t know what to count or discount, making the story unpredictable.

There is enough in Elodie that you can, in some small part, understand her. But there was nothing in her I could actually relate to. There were so many jaw dropping moments at the beginning I was sure this was going to be a 5 star read, but as Mackintosh had to stop and construct more of the real world, something you could find yourself, the pace slowed. And I think slowed too much considering the punchy start. And that’s where the book lost me a bit.

And then imaginary and reality started to mesh and I didn’t know which way was up and I struggled. I struggled to understand where everything was going or even if there would be any satisfactory ending. Things did level out by the end and the story cane through with a twist I didn’t see coming at all!

I think you would love this if you like mid-bending first person narratives, bizarre circumstances and disturbed first person narratives

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