Moving, cathartic, and hilarious novel of nested fairy tales, ghost stories, gothic romances, and changelings that left me wanting to reread it the moment it was over. ( )

My library suggested this, and it was delightful! Thanks, Henry County Library! ( )

Personally, that was a baffling waste of time with a few nicely written lines. This one star is more "I didn't like it" than "it was bad." Definitely people who will enjoy this, just... Not me.

See the full review & more here!

Recommended: Not really, but some people would def like it
Stay away if: you like to understand what the characters are (human? fairy? are they even ALIVE?), or what they are doing, or what they are talking about, or what is happening at any point in the story

Go for it if you know you like magical realism that is very ambiguous and leaves almost everything up to interpretation. This might also be good for book groups or buddy reads, so long as you have people who are willing to talk about every chapter as you go to try to figure out wtf you're reading about

Thoughts:
My face 100% of the time in this book:


I don't have a lot of thoughts that are coherent, because so much of this story was a muddled "what is happening" for me. I can't even identify who was technically the narrator of most of the story, because it clearly WASN'T Harriet, despite it being shaded that way. Anyway... this was a struggle for me. I kept going, because by the time I realized it wasn't going to get any clearer, I was like 75% done and figured I'd just wrap it up.

Simple things are questions, that I feel like should not be questions:
- What are the dolls?? They're like, alive plant-doll hybrids?
- What's the deal with the gingerbread? Is it poisoned, or.. imbued with magical forces??
- At one point they said something like, when they arrived out of Druhástrana, they thought their bones were melted and they were poured out of a container like a vat of custard. I can't even begin to understand what's happening there.

So... maybe if I had been reading this with people I could discuss it with, it would have gone better. As it is, I feel like I would need to analyze theme and symbolism and read some analytical essays to even understand the basic plot of what happened. Frankly, I'm not willing to do that with this. I just don't do well with magical realism sometimes.... ( )

I was very disappointed with this book: I really, really wanted to like it, but it turned out it just wasn't for me at all. I have a difficult relationship with magical realism overall, as it tends to be a little hit-and-miss for me, and Gingerbread sadly was a definite miss.

I was very confused throughout the whole book, and really struggled to understand what was going on. Navigating the shifting timelines and keeping track of the multitude of characters was also difficult and definitely did not help my confusion. I was left extremely frustrated by it all, and really struggled to get through this.

That being said, I loved the book's concept. The storyline was very original, and integrated traditional fairytale elements seamlessly to construct a brand new world. I also liked how the original fairytale was the starting point to explore contemporary issues, touching on everything from family and relationships to belonging, tradition, feeling "other" and so much more. The cast was also wonderfully diverse without it feeling obnoxious, which was refreshing.

Overall, this was a definite case of "it's not you, it's me". There was plenty here that I would have loved to love, but it just didn't work out for me.


I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. ( )

This started out strong and then just got weirder and weirder, to the point that I lost track of the plot. I have a hard time even summarizing what happens here, but it involves a mother telling her daughter her life story, which includes her upbringing in Druhastrana - a non-existent country. The gingerbread the family makes somewhat ties things together and also reminds the reader of fairy tales, which this whole novel seems to be. ( )