Gingerbread

by Helen Oyeyemi

OK well I really don’t know where to start with this book. Even though I have finished this book I feel non the wiser as to what I have read. I feel as though this book doesn’t flow and that it jumps all over the place. When I did think I was starting to understand this book the story change. So I felt as though I was just in a world of confusion.

It was well written in some parts. The part that I enjoyed the most as well as the most interesting part was all about the Gingerbread Girls. How they were taken from their farms and taken to the city. Where they had to behave like young girls and give the impression of being sweet and innocent. When the girls got to a certain age they were sent home or they ended caring and looking after the younger Gingerbread Girls.

This book is about a girl called Perdita and her mother Harriet. Harriet comes from a fictional country, that most people aren’t even aware of as it’s a closely guarded secret. Harriet also has a special recipe for gingerbread which has been passed down by the women of her husbands family.

One day Harriet comes home to find that her daughter has made herself some gingerbread but it has in an extra ingredient. So her mother called the emergency services as she was unresponsive.

Perdita was in a coma for a few days and she said that she travelled to the fictional country Druhastrana, where I think she comes in to contact with Gretel. When she comes out of her coma she has a wooden ring with her that he mother knows is proof that she went there.

While Perdita recovers at home her mother Harriet tells he about her life in Druhastrana, about the farm she lived on, her friends and meeting a girl called Gretel who pretended to be the daughter of the woman in charge of the Gingerbread Girls.

Perdita also has some sort of magical dolls made out of strange things and they can all talk together.

The book is full of magic and this other country that seems to be full of magic, but I didn’t enjoy it as I’ve already said I kept getting lost. When I did think I was starting to understand it I got lost again. This book may be enjoyable for some but it certainly wasn’t for me. So I can only give it 2 stars.

pages: 435, Publication Date: 5 March 2020, My Rating: