A review by manapere
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
2.0
The first 50 or so pages started off promising. I enjoyed the whimsical writing of mundane situations and I was interested in how the magical realism would fold into the story. It doesn't blend into the story however, and after that brief section at the beginning we flashback to a somewhat fictional country where nothing but strange things happen. So many characters and names are thrown at the reader with almost no purpose, to the point where I became completely lost. I thought I would become used to it and eventually follow what was happening, but then ~10 more characters are thrown in and again it becomes confusing. The only driving force is the writing of Helen Oyeyemi. Even though I didn't know exactly what I was reading, I knew it was at least well written.
Gingerbread would have worked much better as a short story or at most a novella. It dragged on for far too long and I found my eyes glazing over words where I could barely take in what I was reading. much less what was happening. This is my first Oyeyemi read, and I'm interested to see how her writing style would fit with perhaps a better or more through-line story.
Gingerbread would have worked much better as a short story or at most a novella. It dragged on for far too long and I found my eyes glazing over words where I could barely take in what I was reading. much less what was happening. This is my first Oyeyemi read, and I'm interested to see how her writing style would fit with perhaps a better or more through-line story.