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.