After reading Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares recently and loving it, I decided to investigate each of the authors a little more. I chose Rachel Cohn first simply because my library has quite a few of her books. Gingerbread is the first in a trilogy so I nabbed that one.Cyd Charisse has just been kicked out of her prestigious east-coast boarding school and is now back living with her parents in San Francisco. Her mother Nancy is a thin, non-eating type and Sid-dad (stepfather) is a wealthy CEO type. Cyd Charisse is rebelling against everything at the moment – rattling around the house and greater San Francisco causing trouble and acting out. The only things she seems to enjoy are hanging out with Sugar Pie at a nursing home and her boyfriend Shrimp, a surfer of small stature. She also has Gingerbread, a doll her real father Frank bought her the one time they met in her life, an all too brief meeting in an airport.As kids who haven’t met/had much to do with their real parents, Cyd Charisse idealises Frank and acts out against Nancy and Sid, who she is actually living with, who take care of her. She pushes boundaries simply to see if they notice and it hurts her when they don’t. When they finally do notice and punish her accordingly, all she can do is throw in their faces that hey, she’s already been doing it for quite a while now. So why punish her? It’s a very real teenager thing to do (I may have done it myself once or twice!) and so Nancy and Sid think that it might be best if Cyd Charisse does actually go and spend time time with Frank – 3 weeks. Frank was married when Cyd Charisse was born but his wife died a few years ago and now it seems like he’s finally willing to get to know Cyd Charisse.Her boyfriend Shrimp tells her that he thinks they should take a bit of a break and so Cyd Charisse, although upset about Shrimp, still heads off to New York with stars in her eyes, dreaming of her reunion with her real father. She’s brought back to Earth with a bit of a thump – Frank isn’t even there to pick her up and also seems reluctant to announce that she’s his daughter. He tells people that she’s his niece (although the two are so similar looks-wise that it seems it would be impossible for Frank to deny paternity) and his god-daughter. He spends hardly any time with Cyd Charisse, other than carefully orchestrated and organised “quality time” which usually is limited to dinner. It is left to Cyd Charisse’s older, gay brother Danny to take her under his wing and show her New York. Cyd Charisse is a lover of coffee and Danny and his partner run a cafe/cake shop so Cyd Charisse starts working some shifts there as a barista. She’s very happy doing that and realises that just might be what she wants out of life. With Shrimp around though, preferably.In New York Cyd Charisse will finally have to confront and get past the ghost of the event that has changed her life. The thing that has made her act out, crave attention, crave something. She’ll realise that what she did was hard and that she did it all by herself and that she is a stronger person for being the one who could deal with it, the one who had to.Cyd Charisse is not always a likable protagonist but I loved reading this novel. She’s selfish and she’s wilful and she’s hurting and does silly things and she also spends a lot of time talking to a doll. And I loved her. I felt for her when she told her story and I felt for her that she had no one to really tell it to properly and be there for her at the time. She was funny and smart and although sarcastic and often a bit childish, that was real and believable. I’m sure I was still plenty childish when I was 16-17 and her voice for me is a true one. I would’ve liked to actually see more of Shrimp – we see very little of their relationship and then Shrimp requests a break and Cyd Charisse heads to New York. I assume the second novel (called Shrimp!) is going to be all about her attempt to get back together with him, so I might get a bit more of an idea of what he’s like when I read that. Shrimp wasn’t really important in this novel, he was more a bit of background information on Cyd Charisse in that she makes different relationship choices now. She just needs to learn to make different choices for herself in other areas and New York is the first step to that.The other characters are skilfully portrayed – Nancy is a strict but also slightly unconventional mother and I very much liked Sid-dad, Cyd Charisse’s tolerant and loving stepfather. Frank was a distant parent, unsure how to go about forging a relationship with his now grown-up daughter and Danny was fun and interesting. Lisbeth, Cyd Charisse’s half-sister was drawn well, having trouble coming to terms with her new teenage sibling but putting on her best game face and making the effort. The subject matter was no where near as light as I first thought just from reading the blurb on the back of the book and the fun surface read successfully explored some darker and more complex topics and issues.
Actually, I'd give this 3.5 stars.After reading the Cohn-Levithan collabs Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Naomi and Ely’s No-Kiss List, I developed some sort of thirst for reading something that is written solo by Rachel Cohn. I’m no stranger to David Levithan’s solo books (Boy Meets Boy, The Realm of Possibility, The Lover’s Dictionary, etc) so I recognize his distinctive writing prowess even if he’s working with partners. Gingerbread is the first book that quenched the said thirst, and after finishing it, I think it’s safe to conclude that the best thing about Cohn is that she has a special way of molding unforgettable main characters that resonate with many young readers.Meet Cyd Charisse: a ragdoll-toting, ex-shoplifting, and well-caffeinated sixteen-year-old girl fresh from being kicked out of her posh boarding school. She’s that lovely but spunky punk next door who has a penchant for carving patterns on her skin with a razor and an innate need to go wild. When her rebelliousness gets seriously out of hand, her parents have no other choice but to send her off to New York City and spend three weeks there with her biological dad, Frank. Cyd’s perfect image of a fantasy relationship with her bio-dad and half-sibs starts to crumble when the real thing is thrown to her face…Plot-wise, there isn’t much that happened in the book. It reads like an informal journal of a very snarky antiheroine who’s dealing with commonplace teen problems. Honestly, I find the first half of this book a tad slow. I’m trying to figure out if Cohn is setting up a wiggle room for character development or she’s just letting the readers delve deeper into Cyd Charisse’s cranium of not-so-clean-but-honest thoughts. I learned by the end of the novel that it’s both, since the readers can easily tell how Cyd has grown a lot after she comes back from New York.Readers who are familiar with Norah Silverberg (from N&NIP) will notice that her traits are somewhat channeled to Cyd Charisse, though the latter is not a music geek and her potty mouth is sealed with a filter. There’s a lot that she bellyaches about, her hormones meter usually explodes under the slightest “hunk” pressure, and most of her thoughts are extremely obnoxious. Then here comes the dichotomy factor: there is something in her that will magnetize a portion of the readers’ hearts—especially if they are young girls. I think it’s the same way a lot of readers don’t like Holden Caulfield yet there are still legions who can relate to him in a deeper level: they are recognizing something in that character that reminds them of themselves. Usually, this “something” is not nice, and characters that mirror such things are commonly tagged as unlikable.The supporting characters, like the plot, are generic. The clichéd portrait of a dysfunctional family is there, with each member not inflated into weighty fullness. They’re not exactly cardboard cutouts, but they’re still shy of a couple of big steps from being considered well-fleshed out.As for the themes, it’s all about the teenage life. Family misunderstandings, peer pressure, romance, and serious repercussions of being careless in sexual relationships are touched. But since this is a coming-of-age novel, finding one’s true self and growing up are at the apex of it all.I did not enjoy did as much as I did Nick and Norah’s, but it’s entertaining enough to make me want to grab the next book in the series, Shrimp.
What do You think about Gingerbread (2004)?
A true coming of age story. Cyd is mature in many ways, already having had experience with drugs and sex at a young age. She knows how to manipulate people to get what she wants and she understands most people’s motives. Regardless, she is very selfish and hides behind her childhood memories of her father who remains with his “real” family on the other side of the United States. Cyd doesn’t feel like she fits with her own family and instead entertains the idea that life would be much better with her real father. In an effort to help her, her mother sends her to spend the summer with her father. Here, Cyd learns that she and her father are very alike-—in a bad way-—and through this she begins to take a look at herself. Deals with mature themes such as drugs, abortion, sex, etc. Has a constant humor/sarcastic tone throughout that help the reader enjoy the character even though she makes questionable decisions. There is a sense of growth within the arc of the story, yet still leaves a feeling of incompleteness. Two more books follow this one so the character may continue to grow throughout.
—Alicia Scully
I didn't really know what I expected of this book and upon finishing it, I'm still not quite certain of how I found it. I can appreciate Cohn's message and the potential of Cyd as a character but I don't think that the execution of these things were handled as well as they could've been. I thought that writing style was one of the biggest issues for me as I found it slowed me down - I wasn't used to the dialect which felt very superficial.Cyd Charisse is our protagonist and she has traits that both annoy me and that I can admire. I felt as though there was a bit too much effort to make Cyd appear to be an outspoken and outlandish girl, which bothered me. Initially, she comes across as rather obnoxious, whiny and petulant. It is clear that Cyd is a difficult character and only as I read more of the book did I adjust to her personality and become more understanding of her. As I progressed throughout the story, I began to realise that a lot of what Cyd had gone through did contribute to her sometimes harsh thoughts and actions. I admire that there was a big message that we shouldn't judge people by our first perceptions, but there was also a lot of other lessons that Cyd could have potentially learned, but I don't feel that she completely realised this. Cohn tries to tackle a lot of subjects in this short novel and I think that she would've been more successful by trying to discuss fewer things, but in more depth. I really liked Cyd's friendship that she had with Gingerbread, an old doll that she had since her last meeting with her biological father. It may sound strange for a teenager, but it helped me as a reader to connect more with her and her sentiments. Both Cyd's romantic and familial relationships were intriguing. Though some of the characters felt unnecessary, such as Leila the housemaid, and some were very stereotypical, such as Nancy, her mother. Shrimp, Cyd's boyfriend, seemed like an interesting character and I can see that he could be developed well in the next novel in this trilogy, but the romance between them both became a little obsessive and tedious.This isn't a book that I'd particularly recommend, but it isn't something that was disastrously bad.I'm not eager to read the next instalment of the Cyd Charisse series and I feel as though I may have liked it slightly more as a younger teen.
—Stephanie (Stepping out of the Page)
What can I say? Cyd Charisse was the kind of protagonist I haven't read before. She absolutely bursts off the page. If the book had been more about her, had spent more time developing both sides of her family, it would easily have been four stars.I mean, how many sex-addicts (the girl spends A LOT of time thinking about boys and sex), doll-touting teenage characters are there?My biggest problems with this book were- spelling mistakes. Yikes, my copy was rife with them- the lack of time spent with the doll. I needed more to understand the bond between CC and Gingerbread; especially throughout high school, especially at boarding school.- Shrimp. Oh god, I hated Shrimp. He was a deadbeat loser with nothing that made him likeable, made you want to root for him? I was SO hoping that any of the other boys that crossed the pages would replace that douche.I wish, wish, wish this book could go back in time and delve more deeply into CC and her family, her life, but with a different love interest and a lot more attention to spelling.
—Lexie
