Gingerbread

The prize winning, bestselling author of Boy, Snow, Bird and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours returns with a bewitching and inventive novel.Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children s stories equal parts wholesome and uncanny, from the tantalizing witch s house in Hansel and Gretel to the man shaped confection who one day decides to run as fast as he can beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe.Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are For one thing, they share a gold painted, seventh floor walk up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation And then there s the gingerbread they make Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it s very popular in Druh strana, the far away and, according to Wikipedia, non existent land of Harriet Lee s early youth In fact, the world s truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread is Harriet s charismatic childhood friend, Gretel Kercheval a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything good or bad that has happened to Harriet since they met.Decades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother s long lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet s story As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy, ambition, family grudges, work, wealth, and real estate, gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value Endlessly surprising and satisfying, written with Helen Oyeyemi s inimitable style and imagination, it is a true feast for the reader. New Download Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr 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 aboutThat said, I think this is a case of It s not you, it s me as I ve come to realize t 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 aboutThat said, I think this is a case of It s not you, it s me as I ve come ...Someone must have given Helen Oyeyemi a handful of magic beans when she was born in Nigeria because she s been planting them ever since This fantastical writer, who completed her first, acclaimed novel at the age of 18, sows her modern day stories in the fertile ground of ancient myths and fables.But Oyeyemi, now 34, isn t just goosing old fairy tales with contemporary melodies She s drawn to what s most unsettling about these fables their disorienting logic, their blithe cruelty, their subtl Someone must have given Helen Oyeyemi a handful of magic beans when she was born in Nigeria because she s been planting them ever since This fantastical writer, who completed her first, acclaimed novel at the age of 18, sows her modern day stories in the fertile ground of ancient myths and fables.But Oyeyemi, now 34, isn t just goosing old fairy tales with contemporary melodies She s drawn to what s most unsettling about these fables their disorienting logic, their blithe cruelty, their subtle encoding of race and gender Nor is she in any way beholden to the source material she collects in the dark forest No matter what characters she s dealing with, she s willing to cut off their tales with a carving knife.Her new novel, Gingerbread, is a challenging, mind bending exploration of class and female power heavily...Wow Oyeyemi is just supremely skilled at making words the centre point of her writing This novel at first glance might have little to no plot, and little to no truly identifiable characters But what it s got in spades is an authentic sense of the here and now It mixes fable and folklore with issues of feminism and race in what are snippet sized allegories that link to create this other worldly novel It s incredibly surreal and wonderfully subversive in its narrative style It s the type Wow Oyeyemi is just supremely skilled at making words the centre point of her writing This novel at first glance might have little to no plot, and little to no truly identifiable characters But what it s got in spades is an authentic sense of the here and now It mixes fable and folklore with issues of feminism and ...1.5, rounded down We re as indivisible as gingerbread dough Shhh, don t ask me what that means p 221Ever since the publication of my most liked review of the execrable and inexplicably award winning Milkman seven months ago, several people bless their hearts have inquired Doug, do you think anything will ever surpass Burns tome in sheer awfulness within your lifetime and inspire you to even greater heights of takedown dom My reply has always been Don t be silly Milkman is the 1.5, rounded down We re as indivisible as gingerbread dough Shhh, don t ask me what that means p 221Ever since the publication of my most liked review of the execrable and inexplicably award winning Milkman seven months ago, several people bless their hearts have inquired Doug, do you think anything will ever surpass Burns tome in sheer awfulness within your lifetime and inspire you to even greater heights of takedown dom My reply has always been Don t be silly Milkman is the ne plus ultra, nay, the Platonic Ideal of Unreadable Drivel Nothing will ever even come close to the pain such a novel inflicts While that, of course, still h...Beautiful writing, engaging characters Some sentences are just to devour However, it s too abstract for my taste and the plot structure caused me to get bored at times So, I think I ll stick to a 3 star at this point and say that I partly enjoyed this book Gingerbread was my most anticipated read of 2019, and sadly it was a letdown Look at that gorgeous cover And no, that s not the only reason I was so hyped I read Helen Oyeyemi s short story collection What is Not Yours is Not Yours over a year ago and instantly fell in love with her writing Then this year I read and loved her novels Mr Fox and White Is for Witching So I was really amped up for the release of this one Gingerbread has everything AND the kitchen sink it s too much and it Gingerbread was my most anticipated read of 2019, and sadly it was a letdown Look at that gorgeous cover And no, that s not the only reason I was so hyped I read Helen Oyeyemi s short story collection What is Not Yours is Not Yours over a year ago and instantly fell in love with her writing Then this year I read and loved her novels Mr Fox and White Is for Witching So I was really amped up for the release of this one Gingerbread has everything AND the kitchen sink it s too much and it s not well managed If this is your first Oyeyemi and you don t like it, don t let it dissuade you This is not the place to start with her work and it s not indicative of the wide range of her talent I think What is Not Yours is Not Yours or White is for Witching would be good starting points.Harriet Lee and her mother Margot emigrated to England from Dr...This was my first time reading this author and I fear it may be the last if her other books are anything like this one I knew going in it would be a weird story, and I was okay with that I was in the mood for something weird or magical, or some sort of modern day fairy tale which would distract me from what s going on in the real world these days And for the first part of this book, I got what I had imagined and was satisfied I was intrigued by the off kilter story, and I felt sympathetic to This was my first time reading this author and I fear it may be the last if her other books are anything like this one I knew going in it would be a weird story, and I was okay with that I was in the mood for something weird or magical, or some sort of modern day fairy tale which would distract me from what s going on in the real world these days And for the first part of this book, I got what I had imagined and was satisfied I was intrigued by the off kilter story, and I felt sympathetic toward the main characters, a mother and daughter, each with secrets that were about to be spilled after a tragedy hit their small family I felt drawn to the mother, Harriet, who was raising her teenaged daughter, Perdita, on her own and longed for her daughter s acceptance and that of the other mothers in town I also sympathized with Perdita who, unlike her mother, only wanted to escape notice by her fellow studen...Lewis Carroll s quote Curiouser and curiouser comes to mind as I try to describe this book It certainly felt like I had gone down the rabbit hold at times I loved the first half and remained fully fascinated Was it a stream of consciousness I thought the writer a genius The second half was less shiny for me and sometimes caused me to lean out, rather than in, however, overall, it was a marvelous read that touched on many subjects.Indeed, talking of subjects, I would be hard pressed to me Lewis Carroll s quote Curiouser and curiouser comes to mind as I try to describe this book It certainly felt like I had gone down the rabbit hold at times I loved the first half and remained fully fascinated Was it a stream of consciousness I thought the writer a genius The second half was less shiny for me and sometimes caused me to lean out, rather than in, however, overall, it was a marvelous read that touched on many subjects.Indeed, talking of subjects, I would be hard pressed to mention one not covered in this book In fact, subjects included a wide and diverse range from the heavy weight to the light and fluffy, from serious abuses to reading the Farmers Almanac to cows I listened to the audiobook, which was an intere...DNF at 30%Magical realism is hit or miss with me Certain books in the genre are charmingly quirky and others go right over my head Unfortunately, Gingerbread was a miss for me.Helen Oyeyemi is undoubtedly a talented writer who can expertly command the page so I was excited to read this upcoming release I appreciate her originality but this novel was underwhelming for me The quirky lives of Perdita and Harriet Lee are shared in a fairy tale style influenced by the classic children s story Han DNF at 30%Magical realism is hit or miss with me Certain books in the genre are charmingly quirky and others go right over my head Unfortunately, Gingerbread was a miss for me.Helen Oyeyemi is undoubtedly a talented writer who can expertly command the page so I was excited to read this upcoming release I appreciate her originality but this novel was underwhelming for me The quirky lives of Perdita and Harriet Lee are shared in a fairy tale style influenced by the...Gingerbread is one of the most unique books I have ever read Helen Oyeyemi s writing is so beautiful and descriptive that she transports you to another world where anything is possible I did have to read slowly and closely as I found this to be a challenging rea...if Murakami had a take on Great Expectations, mixed it with fairytale magic, and sprinkled fucks all over it what a joy That heart, ground to ash and shot through with darts of heat, salt, spice, and sulphorous syrupyou are phenomenal You ve ruined my life forever Thank you.Looking for a book without a plot One that thinks it s muchclever than it is Need a read that rambles aimlessly without direction or thought Then this book is for you I found this torturous and was simply begging for it to end but I m a person who generally refuses to give up till I m done. Harriet Lee s gingerbread is not comfort food There s no nostalgia baked into it, no harkening back to innocent indulgences and nursery times It is not humble, nor is it dusty in its crumb. It begins with an translated epigraph from Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight The beginning and the end accord hardly ever , a paragraph which applies less to the book as a whole the end of the novel does end up roughly according with the start than to individual sections and sometimes paragraphs.Oyeyemi Harriet Lee s gingerbread is not comfort food There s no nostalgia baked into it, no harkening back to innocent indulgences and nursery times It is not humble, nor is it dusty in its crumb. It begins with an translated epigraph from Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight The beginning and the end accord hardly ever , a paragraph which applies less to the book as a whole the end of the novel does end up roughly according with the start than to individual sections and sometimes paragraphs.Oyeyemi is a master of what I can only call digressive description, never one to see a tangent and not want to go off on it, often building a fascinating side story for example early on, one of th...

• English
• 25 May 2017
Helen Oyeyemi
• Paperback
• 435 pages
• 1984882899
• Helen Oyeyemi
• Gingerbread