I think this is more a 2.5 for me than a two and I feel a little mean saying that because some of Ginger Bread is very good (and very me). I loved the idea of fairytale and folklore intertwining with a history of sorts, though the whole history of Belarus was oddly in parts absent bar the fairytale retellings of its history - will make sense if you’ve read it, sorry. I also loved the idea of trees and a tiny bit of sorcery being part of a boys granddads hidden side. I also loved the first 100 pages. But then the book starts to get lost in itself. Is it a fairytale or a horror story? Is it a fairytale or historical retelling through a metaphor? It also sadly becomes over written, a little long and the denouement over the top. So a mixed bag, I still want to try Dinsdales next book though as some of this really had me.

3.5⭐️

This story follows a little boy who, together with his grandfather, travels to the forest to scatter his mother’s ashes.  The boy initially takes comfort in his grandfather’s fairystories as he travels through the brutal savagery of the wild forest.  Gradually, however, the stories become more sinister and start to intertwine with the reality of his grandfather’s concealed history, forcing the boy to examine what it takes to be wild and what it takes to remain wild.

This spellbinding story put me in mind of a combination of Eowyn Ivey’s “The Snow Child” and John Connolly’s “The Book of Lost Things”.  Throughout there were vivid descriptions of the beautiful wilderness of the forest such that it seemed to come to life as its own character, making me want to immediately set off in search of the nearest forest to immerse myself in.   

Ultimately though, this is also a tale about trauma; both in stories that are told and in more personal stories that are not told.  The boy’s grandfather, although haunted by his experiences during the war, has maintained a well-practiced composed exterior.  In the depths of the forest, he becomes unable to contain his past and uses stories to examine the long-buried guilt he has carried his whole life but never spoken of, allowing the wild to slowly take him over as he does so. 

“…my papa lived in the tenement all of his life, but he never stopped being wild.  Not really.  He pretended and pretended, and then it burst out of him, and it was roots and shoots and gnarled branches and bared teeth.” 

This is an atmospheric story that really pulls the reader in and absorbs them in the fairytale setting of the enchanted forest, but it’s also an analysis of the role that stories play in our lives and our sense of self.

I loved this book and I have a feeling it will become one that I will reread over and over again.

Well that was heartbreaking.

A blend of fairy tale and history, Gingerbread is a story that blurs the lines between the two, the deeper and deeper you read the fuzzier that line becomes until eventually you can't see it anymore. I find this style of story telling magical but it is too raw to call it whimsical, too deep for that. It's meant to make you think, to make you feel and perhaps to teach us readers something.

Gingerbread is a story about love and grief, life and death, lost and found, and about the promises we make and the lengths we will go to to keep them. All set within the boughs of a snow capped forest and the town at its borders.

I could type forever and still not accurately convey my thoughts about this book, I have more feelings than thought about it at this stage; a sort of hovering questioning and reflectiveness. It has definitely stirred in me a desire to learn more about modern history, ever I've been a student of myth and ancient history but I know little of Joseph Stalin and the events this story refers too, I'd like to know more.

One thing I would advise though, do not binge this book. It's best enjoyed slowly, preferably on long cold winter's nights in front of hot fires. Put it down for periods of time, let it marinate and then come back and read a little more.

A thoroughly captivating read. I've read this within a span of several hours.

A boy is left under the care of his grandfather...they go to the woods to fulfil a promise to the boy's mother, despite the Old Man's reluctance. Things start to unravel from there

It's a gripping tragic tale about the unravelling of a man though his tragic past, about a boy caught up in this. A man who never stopped being wild, a man who didn't want to go back to a forest because he likely knew what it means: a confrontation with his beastly sides, a confrontation he likely feared the most. It's about fear, about human nature, survival and about promises. Most of all, I felt it strongly: emotional resonance and precision. all the descriptions of survival only highlighted the growing rift between a grandfather and his grandson, the grandfather's growing wildness and I felt it was even more tragic beyond everything else.

Some lines return like haunting refrains; that just emphasizes the tragic feel of the story and the old man's regrets. And the fairy tales the old man tells reveal a heart-wrenching past.

The story is so elemental, so primal, woven through fairy tales that really emphasize the tragic position of the old man and of the boy as he gradually grows, it's fantastic. I love the writer's rich style and approach.

This novel seems to transcend time. It's never really mentioned when it's set, and though the myths and stories Papa tells his grandson during the course of the book all connote to real-life events, it's difficult to figure out just when this is happening.

As the love child of Grimms' fairytales and 'The Road', 'Gingerbread' follows a young boy whose mother has just passed away from cancer, leaving him in the care of his grandfather, or Papa. They decide to take his mother's ashes to the woods outside of their home in Belarus, where they become enveloped by the trees and discover the difficulty of leaving the forest once it has become a part of them.

I genuinely believed that this would be a more fairytale, slightly magical type of story, but what I got was something a lot darker. This is not the kind of fairytale you want to fall asleep too; it's one that seems to move between fairytale and horror story. Especially being told through the perspective of the young boy, it makes a lot of the narrative appear so much more sinister than perhaps was intended.

However, I did really enjoy the magical realism of it. Dinsdale's descriptions of the forest and the forest becoming part of the two characters' psyche. If anything, the forest became the third character during those long stretches of prose where there was no other interaction with society. It was definitely an interesting novel, but not something I'd come back to.

‘’Once, all of the world was covered in forests. But, slowly, over the years, those forests were driven back - by people just like us. They chopped them down to make timber, and burned them to make farms. But this little corner of the world where we live is very special. Because half our country is covered in forests that have been chopped or cut back. The oaks in these forests are hundreds of years old. They’ve grown wizened and wise. And those forests have seen it all: the Russian, and Poland, and Germany, emperors and kings, and too many wars. Those trees would tell some stories, if only they could speak!’’

In a city close to a dark forest in Belarus, a little boy is carrying a heavy burden. Without a father and with his beloved mother facing a critical illness, Alek is forced to remain in the care of his papa, his mother’s father, a man formidable, terrifying and seemingly wise. His grandfather is troubled and troubling but Alek has given a promise to his mama and cannot take it back. He has to face the dark forest, the hungry trees, the shadows of the past. Above all, he has to protect his sanity from a man who was treated unjustly by forces darker than the thickest canopies of the threatening forest…

‘’The forests are alive, boy. They live and love and hate, just the same as you and me.’’

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale is one of the most unique, beautiful, magical books I’ve ever read.Gingerbread is very different but no less haunting and powerful. Where The Toymakers is full of the magic of Christmas, Gingerbread is adorned with the darkness and mystery of the Slavic fairy tales and nature. The dark forest with the bloodthirsty trees and the carnivorous shadows becomes a metaphor for a man’s tortured soul and a boy’s agony to stay true to his vow while protecting the ones he loves from a wrath that is blind and unjust. Forest folklore, Belarusian history, Slavic culture, Baba Yaga, Ded Moroz, the spirits that reside in centuries-old trees...A painting of legends and traditions by a brilliant artist.

‘’Well, smiled the first wise man -for he had woven a trap of words, and caught at the soldier, If you would rather be in the woods than serving the Winter King, you are his enemy. So now you must be banished to the farthest east, to the world of Perpetual Winter, and there you must toil in your king’s service, in that great frozen city called Gulag.’’

Apart from the unseen world, though, there is a harsh reality that Alek must face. Gingerbread provides a realistic depiction of a person fighting cancer. It hurts so much because this is a young mother that won’t have the chance to see her wonderful, clever boy become a man. Dinsdale writes about an unbearably painful subject in a quiet, sensitive way and the result is extremely powerful. A boy is forced to grow up viciously fast, experiencing a strange, cruel world and a grandfather whose heart and soul have been haunted by the Soviet horrors.

History is never far away in this story and I am glad to finally meet a writer who refers to the partisans as the heroes they were. Unlike the abominable In The Shadow of Wolves by Alvydas Slepikas. Because let’s face it, that ''writer'' wanted the reader to feel sorry for the people who didn’t give a damn about the Holocaust, who ‘’ didn’t know’’. I am sorry, Nazi writer, get out! Dinsdale is a magnificent writer who writes with respect, perspective and above all, he is knowledgeable and objective. He doesn’t take his readers for uninformed fools. The way he has created the allusions to refer to the Soviet Era is outstanding, haunting and heartbreaking. The Winter King, the King in the West, the land of Perpetual Winter, the Iron Wall…

The last chapters of the novel are pure agony. I felt my mind spinning and my heart was pounding with horror. The ending is superb. Each character - Alek, papa, mama, Elenya, Mr. Navitski- deserves a book of their own. This is how Literature becomes an unforgettable experience.

‘’But other trees saw the work of the King in the West and were filled with joy. Because trees feed on dead things, and send their roots down to drink them up, and when the King in the West killed in the forests, some trees were tempted to feed on the murdered men. And those trees grow mighty and powerful, with branches made from dead men, and there in the forests, the trees that have drunk on the dead of the wars of winter - for those are the trees whose trunks have the faces of men. For that is their curse, to forever wear the features of the men they have eaten.’’

My reviews can be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/

A dark modern fairytale, blended with nature, history and horror. I’ve never read a book quite like it and am not sure I will again.

I normally don't give a 5⭐ to a book I won't read again but I feel this one deserves it. I honestly did not know what I was in for with Gingerbread.

The quote on the cover by James Long: "Matches the rigour of McCarthy's The Road but as if the Brothers Grimm had hijacked it...gripping."

Swipe for the blurb on the back. What it doesn't say is that the mother dies of cancer in the first few chapters. No mention of the father.

It is really grim and I had to take breaks from it but at the same time I wanted to rip through it.

You don't discover the boy's name until Elenya, the girl he befriends, returns it to him and in a way that is really fitting. At first, he is just the son of a woman dying of cancer. Then, he is the grandson of a man battling his demons. However, Elenya is his own friend he fights for to get back to his life.

Dinsdale uses the style of old fairy tales in his narrative and repeats that in every tale there is some truth. It makes perfect sense that people made up stories based on real events to make them less horrible. The slow deterioration of the grandfather matches the increasing tension of his tale right up to the horrific ending.

Then comes the twist that had me tearing up and sighing with the boy, "oh papa".

A beautifully written book that will haunt me more than The Road.