Parenthetical.net

Gingerbread bills itself as “edgy,” with cover quotes from Teen People, Elle Girl, and Twist magazines rather than other authors, and a cover featuring a punky girl with platform boots. But it’s basically your average finding-yourself novel: Cyd hates living with her mom and stepdad, so she acts like a brat until they send her to her “Bio-Dad,” where she learns about her past and becomes more comfortable with her present and future. Sure, she’s a little “wild,” and — ooooh — she makes out with a guy who’s too old for her, but it’s really all pretty tame.

Despite the totally generic plot, something about the writing stuck with me. It has a strong sense of place (San Francisco and New York), which is a kink of mine.

Plus I got caught up in the Francesca Lia Block-esque stream-of-consciousness:

I thought about it on the plane ride home to San Francisco, my new ultra fantastico tribute commune to all things ginger…. Sid and Nancy will chill on the whole scene because we will serve them ginger tea laced with mellow vibes, and just the thought of all those gingerbread-house colors will keep Nancy occupied, coordinating peppermint-stick patterns and LifeSaver-stained glass windows, and will keep Sid-dad on his toes, worrying about cost overruns and labor laws.

Yeah, ok, it’s totally overwritten — but can’t you just taste those ginger-flavored LifeSaver windows?

Anyway, it took me awhile to get into it — mostly because I couldn’t tell whether the book was going to admit that Cyd was being a brat — but I ended up enjoying it in spite of myself. Ooh! And apparently there are sequels!