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A review by flutteringbutterflies
Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn
4.0
I had a massive stack of paranormal YA books on my TBR pile today, some that needed to be finished pretty urgently for whatever reason. And I just wasn't feeling it. There's only so much I can take, right? So I went to my shelves and picked the slimmest realistic fiction book I could find to give myself a break. And oh boy, am I glad that my hands landed on Gingerbread. I'd had this book for awhile, but never gotten around to it. Partially because of that cover. I thought it was more of a pre-teen type of thing with the rag doll, and I really couldn't be more wrong about it. And the rag-doll turned out to be quite central to the story.
I really loved this book right from the first page. Cyd Charisse is such a fun character with a very unique voice and personality. She really had me laughing. Especially as she's so bold and at the same time really quite vulnerable. She gets kicked out of her East coast boarding school for bad behaviour and is sent home to San Francisco. Her only friends are an old woman in a nursing home and her short, surfer-boyfriend, Shrimp. Cyd Charisse's relationships with her mom and step-father (Sid and Nancy!) are tested beyond the limit and she's sent off to her biological father in New York.
Oh Cyd Charisse. She's off-the-rails a bit, with the sex and the attitude, but you can see how much it stems from the events that led to her getting kicked out of boarding school and her weird family structure. What Cyd Charisse is going through? The only YA novel I've ever read which has dealt with it in this way. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, even though it's told quite early on. But I approve. And I loved the journey that Cyd was on.. even with her confusing familial relationships and the decisions and mistakes that those around her made, she was able to grow up a little bit and put things more into perspective.
I love being surprised by a book like I was with Gingerbread and I cannot wait to read the other book in this series, Shrimp and Cupcake. More Cyd Charisse please!
I really loved this book right from the first page. Cyd Charisse is such a fun character with a very unique voice and personality. She really had me laughing. Especially as she's so bold and at the same time really quite vulnerable. She gets kicked out of her East coast boarding school for bad behaviour and is sent home to San Francisco. Her only friends are an old woman in a nursing home and her short, surfer-boyfriend, Shrimp. Cyd Charisse's relationships with her mom and step-father (Sid and Nancy!) are tested beyond the limit and she's sent off to her biological father in New York.
Oh Cyd Charisse. She's off-the-rails a bit, with the sex and the attitude, but you can see how much it stems from the events that led to her getting kicked out of boarding school and her weird family structure. What Cyd Charisse is going through? The only YA novel I've ever read which has dealt with it in this way. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, even though it's told quite early on. But I approve. And I loved the journey that Cyd was on.. even with her confusing familial relationships and the decisions and mistakes that those around her made, she was able to grow up a little bit and put things more into perspective.
I love being surprised by a book like I was with Gingerbread and I cannot wait to read the other book in this series, Shrimp and Cupcake. More Cyd Charisse please!