Review Detail

Gingerbread tells the story of a girl whose parents divorced when she was young. She has only one memory of her father: meeting him in an airport, where he gave her gingerbread and bough her a doll. She promptly named the doll Gingerbread and has carried it around ever since.

Now a teenager, she still has the doll, as well as the yearning to see her father. Her mother has remarried, and though she gets along well enough with her stepfather and adores her younger half-siblings, she feels out of place - and feels the need to get out of that place.

She finally gets the chance to visit her father, going across the continent to the other coast, only to find that she doesn't quite fit there either. Her father is distant and their relationship is awkward. She has half-siblings on her father's side, but they are older, grown, which pushes her into the unfamiliar role of the younger sister. Luckily, she hits it off with one of them: her half-brother Danny, who is extremely lovable and easily my favorite character in the book.

The book moves along at a good pace, giving you more and more insight into the characters as it goes along. Secrets are revealed, bonds are made, promises are broken, but always in a realistic fashion. In other words, this book is not sappy nor melodramatic. It reminds us that just because you are related does not make you automatic friends, but it does not have to make you enemies either.

I am looking forward to Shrimp, the sequel to Gingerbread, released in 2005. I also greatly enjoyed Rachel Cohn's juvenile novel The Steps, which also dealt with extended and estranged families, but with a younger protagonist and a touch more comedy.