You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bawallington 's review for:
Gingerbread
by Helen Oyeyemi
"Rays of platinum crossed beams of dingy plaster. The dimensions of their room deepened. As they painted, Harriet made an attempt to ask a question via telepathy. She would have loved to know why Margot went on dragging her daughter all over the place in the name of some better way of life that probably didn't even exist, doing this in the full knowledge that said daughter had no other special needs aside from that of being where her mother was." - Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi
This loose retelling of Hansel and Gretel begins when Harriet finds her teenage daughter Perdita nearly dead after imbibing some of her mother's gingerbread and an unknown substance. When she awakes, she claims to have visited her mother and grandmother Margot's home country of Druhástrana - a country described by Wikipedia as "a likely purely mythical land." While Perdita recovers, Harriet tells a long bedtime story to her daughter and a chorus of talking dolls about growing up as a gingerbread factory girl in a country of ambiguous borders, her strange flight to England via distantly related benefactors, and the subsequent making and breaking and re-making of a new family.
Gingerbread captures the flighty illogic, gruesome consequences, and unsettling strangeness of fairytales without directly replicating any one story. Frankly - there were parts that did not make sense. But at its core, it is a story of immigration and adjusting to a place so drastically different from where you have been; of family relationships and their rapid shifts between closeness and enmity, all while remaining bound to one another; and of secrets and exploitation, where factories own girls paid by fake money and the origins of wealth, children, and houses alike are shrouded. I absolutely loved this book. I found it to be funny, charming, illuminating, and surprising in equal parts (although I do understand the mixed reviews. Again: the plot often did not make sense). I especially enjoyed the audiobook read by the author and can see myself returning to this short, strange story again and again. 5/5 stars.
Read with: [b:The Changeling|31147267|The Changeling|Victor LaValle|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492886432l/31147267._SY75_.jpg|51777682] if you're into the 'fairytale embedded into real life with high stakes for mother and child' and/or [b:White Teeth|3711|White Teeth|Zadie Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1374739885l/3711._SY75_.jpg|7480] if you like your British immigrant family stories with only a dash less suspension of disbelief.
This loose retelling of Hansel and Gretel begins when Harriet finds her teenage daughter Perdita nearly dead after imbibing some of her mother's gingerbread and an unknown substance. When she awakes, she claims to have visited her mother and grandmother Margot's home country of Druhástrana - a country described by Wikipedia as "a likely purely mythical land." While Perdita recovers, Harriet tells a long bedtime story to her daughter and a chorus of talking dolls about growing up as a gingerbread factory girl in a country of ambiguous borders, her strange flight to England via distantly related benefactors, and the subsequent making and breaking and re-making of a new family.
Gingerbread captures the flighty illogic, gruesome consequences, and unsettling strangeness of fairytales without directly replicating any one story. Frankly - there were parts that did not make sense. But at its core, it is a story of immigration and adjusting to a place so drastically different from where you have been; of family relationships and their rapid shifts between closeness and enmity, all while remaining bound to one another; and of secrets and exploitation, where factories own girls paid by fake money and the origins of wealth, children, and houses alike are shrouded. I absolutely loved this book. I found it to be funny, charming, illuminating, and surprising in equal parts (although I do understand the mixed reviews. Again: the plot often did not make sense). I especially enjoyed the audiobook read by the author and can see myself returning to this short, strange story again and again. 5/5 stars.
Read with: [b:The Changeling|31147267|The Changeling|Victor LaValle|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492886432l/31147267._SY75_.jpg|51777682] if you're into the 'fairytale embedded into real life with high stakes for mother and child' and/or [b:White Teeth|3711|White Teeth|Zadie Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1374739885l/3711._SY75_.jpg|7480] if you like your British immigrant family stories with only a dash less suspension of disbelief.