Book Review—Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn

Fresh and Memorable Young Adult Novel is an Energetic Read

Oct 15, 2009

Gingerbread is a funny, poignant and irreverent story about a savvy and strangely likeable sixteen year old punk-Goth misfit girl with a dead-on and amusing take on life.

Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, March 1, 2002, ISBN 0689843372)

Meet Cyd Charisse: not the graceful and elegant dancing movie star of the '50s, but rather the recovering hellion just-got-kicked-out-of-posh-New England-boarding-school Cyd Charisse who is a misfit in every sense of the word. At home, she is the much-older and noticeably different-looking step-sibling, at school she is the friendless punk-Goth girl, even with her “soul mate” Shrimp, she doesn't really “fit”because barefoot and hunched over, she's still a good head taller than her tiny surfer dude.

After being kicked out of boarding school, the wealthy and wild love-child Cyd is sentenced to Alcatraz (her self-named bedroom) as punishment for an unauthorized sleepover at Shrimp's parent-less home. When not even Alcatraz can contain her angst and hostility toward her privileged and picture-perfect family, she is sent to spend the summer in New York with her “bio-dad” Frank who has yet to give her anything besides a trust fund and a telepathic-ragdoll-confidante-best-friend named Gingerbread.

Cyd Charisse is thrilled to leave San Francisco behind, especially after soul-mate Shrimp calls for a relationship Time Out, and she anxiously readies herself for a grand adventure in New York. Cyd envisions how cool her “bio-dad” and half siblings will be and fantasizes about finally fitting in to perfect family. But her New York family has issues of its own, and instead of finding a “perfect” family, Cyd Charisse finds instead an opportunity to envision a more mature version of herself and gains a new perspective on both her east coast and west coast families.

Cyd Charisse's families are a bit cliche: on the west coast her Barbie doll mom is obsessed with weight and appearances, her younger siblings are run-of-the-mill spoiled rich brats. On the east coast her biological father is a wealthy workaholic skirt-chaser, her half-sister is an icy, driven, type-A CEO wannabe, and her brother is a gay coffeehouse barrister from the Village. In the haste of covering a lot of ground (Cyd's prep school flashbacks, her mother's former life, her father's secrets, Shrimp's absentee-parent family) some characters are underdeveloped (especially Cyd's cardboard younger siblings) and a few of the minor plot points feel unresolved.

Cyd Charisse is a you-gotta-love-her character whose awkward teen dilemmas and side-splitting Cyd-isms (“zigzag combustible whoo-hoo freedom ride”) are witty, clever and devilishly delicious. Author Rachel Cohn does a fantastic job of incorporating up-to-the-minute teen language and sympathetically addressing the problems of both generations.

Winner of numerous awards including “Best Book of the Year Selection” by Publishers Weekly and the School Library Journal, Gingerbread was also chosen for: American Library Association Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, ALA Popular Paperback for Young Adults, and ALA “100 Best of the Best for the 21st Century” to name just a few. Cyd Charisse's enamored fans can follow her through more teenage angst through the follow-up novels Shrimp (Simon Pulse, May 9, 2006, ISBN 0689866135) and Cupcake (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2008, 1416912193).

The copyright of the article Book Review—Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn in Teen Fiction is owned by Francine Morrissette. Permission to republish Book Review—Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.