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Gingerbread Girl (2011)

by Paul Tobin(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 6

ISBN

1603090800 (ISBN13: 9781603090803)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Top Shelf Productions

review 1: Four stars, downgraded to three due to the abrupt stop. Can't even call it an ending - I quite literally checked to see if someone had ripped pages out of the book before I realized that no, that's it.I thought the artwork worked extraordinarily well, and the constant change of narrators was interesting instead of annoying. I wish there was more than the very narrow slice-of-life we're shown.
review 2: I actually saw this at the library, looked at the first couple of pages, which boil down to "tee, hee, I'm bisexual and I'm in my panties", and put it back. But then I happened to pick up again (what can I say, the title grabbed my attention) and actually read it and boy, is it ever a surreal combination of slice-of-life drama and complete mindfuck. Or maybe... more, considering the cute, friendly style, sort of a mind-cuddle with occasional mind-spanking. The closest thing I can compare it to is Calvin and Hobbes, with maybe a little The Truman Show thrown in, depending on how you interpret what's going on.27-year-old Portland bookstore employee Annah is waiting for a date. Actually, two dates. Her plans is to go with whoever arrives first, which turns out to be her girlfriend, Chili, and blow off the other one. She talks directly to the audience to introduce herself, then ignores us (for the rest of the book), and then after some banter with Chili, Annah goes into her room to get dressed, and Chili fill us in on her backstory. It seems Annah believes that when she was nine, around the time her parents were getting divorced, her father removed the section of her brain known as the Penfield homunculus and made it into a sister for her, named Ginger. Now Annah can only really feel sensations or emotions when Ginger feels them. The problem is that Ginger left at some point, leaving Annah perpetually trying to find her. Then Ginger and Chili leave and a pigeon on the windowsill starts narrating. Then some random guy on the street who doesn't even know them, and makes it loudly known that he thinks it's a waste to do a comic about two girls dating and just have them standing around at an art gallery. And so on, through a succession of people. At first it just seems like a cute narrative devices, but as it continues, and you start to realize just how deeply messed-up Annah is, it takes on an almost sinister tone. As the book's central question--is Ginger a real person?--is explored, and we're introduced to conflicting evidence on the matter, the question of how literally we're meant to take the narrators seems bound to it. If Ginger is imaginary, then Annah, who catches glimpses of her everywhere and perpetually thinks she's hiding within a few blocks, is seriously paranoid. Characters like the store clerk, who talks at length about Annah's background only to shut up and become/play the role of a normal clerk just as she walks in the door, could be seen as just more of her delusions. On the other hand, if Ginger is real then it's pretty clear that Annah is being seriously fucked around with by the universe.There's also a lot of other stuff, cute drawings, a deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype, some information on the history of bulldogs, a really pretty good joke about bread, and two gingerbread cookies having sex. It's interesting. You should read it. less

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