Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Full review to be found on Goodreads and on my website.

I want to love Helen Oyeyemi's books because there is no denying that her writing is beautiful and I love the concepts of all of her novels. However, there's just something about them that doesn't click for me. I don't mind being confused by a novel but this one never came together. I felt so disoriented, which is too bad because I noralmally love magical realism!

I really enjoy reading a good fictional novel but this one fell short. The writing was difficult to get through and it just lost my interest because of that.

liked the concept but the writing wasn’t my cup of tea. sadly DNF :((( maybe i’ll try again some day

I received an ARC of this from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I just couldn’t finish this. Never mind that I ran out of time but I actually couldn’t figure out what I was reading. It made no sense. I got the gist of an unsuccessful suicide attempt but the reasons why remain a mystery to me. She wanted to go where? I’m confused. That’s not a real place. Nor am I prepared to go headlong into an imaginary world with weird characters that don’t seem to have any relevance at all. I just didn’t get it after 120 pages in. Not my cup of tea.

Gingerbread begins in modern-day London, where Harriet Lee, a thirty-four-year-old mom, is trying her best to be-friend other moms in the PPA - Parental Power Association. She's from a place they call Druhastrana (which doesn't really exist), likes to spend time online giving five-star reviews to every book she's read in order to balance the random negative reviews others leave and is quite proud of her gingerbread recipe - a "lean-year" recipe that came down through her father's side of the family.

Harriet's seventeen-year-old daughter, Perdita, is similar to other moody British teenagers, except for the fact that she has dolls that can move and talk. She wants to know more about her mother's birthplace, family, and reunite her Harriet with her friend Gretel.

Druhastrana is a place where four very strange landmarks are used to navigate:
- The Cooper family home, which is a big, wooden clog
- An enormous broken loom
- A Jack-in-the-box that sometimes changes location on its own
- Gretel's Well

I normally like magical realism, but found all of the characters unlikable, and the story confusing. which made me feel detached. However, it is well-written, just isn't my cup of tea.

I love the complicated Mother/daughter relationship, and as a mother, I can relate to the weight of parental guilt that causes many parents to worry about improving their children's lives when all the children really want is your time.

Gingerbread is an imaginative, weird and whimsical tale about jealousy, family secrets, class, and feminism.

Here is my most anticipated read of 2019 – a new novel from Helen Oyeyemi! Her previous release was a short story collection, which of course was delightful in its own way, but distinct from a novel. I first read White is for Witching nearly ten years ago. I remember being astonished when I learnt Oyeyemi was only 24 years old at time of its publication. It’s been a delight to follow the writing career of one so young who has lots of room to grow and share many more stories!

I don’t believe a Helen Oyeyemi novel can be adequately after a single read. It took me many rereads of White is for Witching for me to fully grasp what that story was about. How much of Gingerbread did I fully understand? Perhaps 30%? But I could probably just throw any number out there – understanding the story on the first read is not the goal for me. I admit there was a moment around 57% where my pleasant bewilderedness evolved into “okay seriously what is going on now” (however, around 80%, I was completely absorbed again). I know that rereading this book will reveal more every time I do so – on the first read, I can revel in the prose and idiosyncrasies without fretting about ‘not getting it’. Perhaps other readers will understand Gingerbread better than I did on a first read, but that’s no matter. I still enjoyed it!

One had more patience, and the other had more resolve, and they were about even when it came to daring, so their love established possibilities and impossibilities without keeping score.

I cannot think of an author I’ve read whose style compares to Oyeyemi’s. This is why I enjoy her writing so much. I reread sentences. I read them slowly for the delight of it – that first time encounter with a brand new story. Reading this book is a very different experience, in many ways, than reading Seanan McGuire (the only other whose new release I am similarly excited about) but what really stands out to me is the cadence of Oyeyemi’s writing.

When someone accidentally speaks to her, she just shakes her head. If they still won’t take the hint, she’ll add, “No, I’m no there,” in a gentle way rather than a snippy one.

This has turned into one of those reviews where I don’t discuss the book at all and I just talk about my experience reading it. I guess I should re-title this post, lol. *changes title to include word ‘reflection’* Anyway, I’ve just learnt that Oyeyemi narrates this audiobook herself. :O It may have to become the first audiobook I listen to…

The Bottom Line: Don’t pick this up for the plot, pick it up for the experience of reading. Gingerbread will be a treat for those who carefully choose the words they read.

What’s the recipe for Gingerbread? Take a pound of ergot infested wheat, a stick of Brothers Grimm and a good smidgen of surrealism. When I think of the food gingerbread I think of a dark complexity of flavours. I’m never sure what is in it or even if I really like it. It’s possible I just eat it because its tradition and I feel that I should. Helen Oyeyemi’s Gingerbread provoked similar mixed feelings in me. I’m not sure what I just read. If I had to explain this story I don’t think I could. There’s a mysterious country that might not even exist, there are talking dolls, characters that seem able to disappear and reappear at will, and creepy “Annihilation” style animal/plant hybrids. All the elements come together into something quite extraordinary but I can’t confidently say that I enjoyed it. I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. For the most part it just confused me but it has left me feeling mostly positive and satisfied.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and Hamish Hamilton for providing an Electronic Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley for review.

This is my first read by Oyeyemi and what an interesting introduction to her lyrical writing style.

I'm not sure quite how to describe Gingerbread. In it, we meet Harriet Lee, a woman who bakes some pretty amazing gingerbread and is the mother of a teen named Perdita. We are introduced to Harriet and Perdita in their strange London flat (which they share with four dolls), but we soon learn that Harriet is originally from Druhustrana, a non-existent country. Perdita desperately wants to reunite her mother with her Druhastranian friend, Gretel, with whom she has an unusual connection. The story is part magical realism, part fairytale, and part origin story. It drew me in quickly and was a pleasure to read.

Thanks to the author, Hamish Hamilton, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars

I have a feeling that I’m going to be in the minority when it comes to this book, but I just didn’t get it. I was confused and unsure about what was happening 80% of the time, due shifting timelines, elements of magical realism, the multitude of characters and so on. While I spent the other 20% engaged in Oyeyemi’s wonderful writing, I finished this book without any clear idea of what it was about...

That said, I think this is a case of ‘It’s not you, it’s me” as I’ve come to realize that magical realism just isn’t for me. I’m sure other people will love this book, and I feel bad that I didn’t, but it is what it is.

'Gingerbread' is equal parts whimsical and all-too-real; though Oyeyemi's prose is lyrical and evokes a time and place that harkens back to the whimsy of childhood fairytales, the tale of familial inheritance and connection at it's core is timeless. Oyeyemi is a master of geist and the melancholy narrative threads which hold us together.