Gingerbread - Hardcover

Cohn, Rachel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689843372 ISBN 13: 9780689843372

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2002

Synopsis

"I have promised to be a model citizen daughter....I have confined my Shrimp time to making out with him in the Java the Hut supply closet and quick feels on the cold hard sand at the beach during our breaks, but enough is enough....Delia and I are planning a party at Wallace and Shrimp's house and I am spending the night whether Sid and Nancy notice or not. I will be as wild as I wanna be."
After being kicked out of a fancy New England boarding school, Cyd Charisse is back home in San Francisco with her parents, Sid and Nancy, in a household that drives her crazy. Lucky for Cyd, she's always had Gingerbread, her childhood rag doll and confidante.
After Cyd tests her parents' permissiveness, she is grounded in Alcatraz (as Cyd calls her room) and forbidden to see Shrimp, her surfer boyfriend. But when her incarceration proves too painful for the whole family, Cyd's parents decide to send her to New York to meet her biological father and his family, whom Cyd has always longed to know.
Summer in the city is not what Cyd Charisse expects -- and Cyd isn't what her newfound family expects, either.
With Gingerbread, debut author Rachel Cohn creates a spirited world of in-your-face characters who are going to stay with readers for a long time.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Cohn is the bestselling author of You Know Where to Find Me, Gingerbread, Shrimp, Cupcake, Pop Princess, and, with David Levithan, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List, and Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares as well as the tween novels The Steps and Two Steps Forward. Born in Washington, DC, she graduated from Barnard College in New York and has lived on both coasts. She lives in Los Angeles. Visit her at RachelCohn.com.

Reviews

Grade 9&Up--According to stepdad, Sid, Cyd Charisse is a "recovering hellion." Kicked out of boarding school, the teen returns home to San Francisco. True to her wild nature and obsession with boys, she does anything to get a rise from her parents. She is grounded in her "puke-princess bedroom" after being caught out overnight again with surfer-boyfriend, Shrimp. Finally, Sid and Nancy send her to bio-dad in NYC. Meeting her real father and family has long been Cyd's dream. Since he was married with children when her mom had an affair with him, he is virtually a stranger to her. When Cyd got in trouble at boarding school and needed money for an abortion though, she called him. He didn't remember Gingerbread, the rag doll he gave her when she was five, but he helped her out. Cyd Charisse sees herself when she meets him 11 years later. She finds excitement working in her gay half-brother's caf‚ as a barista and exploring New York. Confrontations with her older half-sister and brief talks with her father bring Cyd more knowledge about her families on both coasts. Her strong, independent, and kinky personality; realistic take on life; and quick mind make her a memorable character. Cohn works wonders with snappy dialogue, up-to-the-minute language, and funny repartee. Her contemporary voice is tempered with humor and deals with problems across two generations. Funny and irreverent reading with teen appeal that's right on target.

Gail Richmond, San Diego Unified Schools, CA

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The 16-year-old "recovering hellion" (as her stepfather refers to her) who narrates Cohn's debut novel, breathes a joie de vivre into this story of her bicoastal family. Cyd Charisse (named for the dancer/actress), a wealthy and wild love child, begins her story after being booted out of boarding school. Nearly the first half of the novel is set in San Francisco, where she's having trouble settling back into life with a mother obsessed with weight and a perfect house, and a boyfriend, Shrimp, who suddenly wants his space. Her mother and stepdad agree to send her to her biological father in New York City, whom she's only met once (when he gave her Gingerbread, a still-treasured rag doll). Cohn creates a vivid sense of place and culture on both coasts and, although Cyd doesn't find the perfect family in either place, she is able to find a more mature version of herself. Plus, she learns to appreciate both sides of her family; she's even able to finally tell her mother about her secret abortion. Cohn covers a lot of ground, from prep school flashbacks to Cyd's discovery of the secrets on her father's side of the family. Some of the characters and plot points are more developed than others; for instance, Cyd's elderly hip and clairvoyant friend, Sugar Pie, and Shrimp may seem more vivid to readers than Cyd's younger West Coast half-siblings. In the end, it's Cyd's creativity and energy that keep the story on course, and her magnetic narrative will keep readers hooked. Ages 13-up.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 9-12. Sixteen-year-old Cyd Charisse's parents call her "Little Hellion." When she's kicked out of an exclusive boarding school, she returns to her privileged home in San Francisco, where she fights constantly with her mother and stepfather, who don't know about her recent abortion. She finds her place with new friends: a boyfriend Shrimp, a sexy surfer, and Honey Pie, an elderly woman who understands her secrets. After a broken curfew escalates into bitterness, Cyd is sent to her biological father in New York City. "Frank real-dad" isn't what Cyd had imagined: nor are his two grown kids. Cyd's New York experience helps her confront her most painful questions. Written in Cyd's hilarious, contemporary voice, Cohn's first novel is a fast, uncomfortable read. Bratty, spoiled, and prone to tantrums, Cyd is often unlikable and is all the more realistic for it. Some characters, particularly Cyd's parents, and details about the world of wealth occasionally collapse into stereotype, and Cyd spikes her honest, revealing speech with such aggressively hip words as crazysexy, which may date quickly. But teens will recognize themselves in Cyd's complex, believable mix of the arch and the vulnerable, the self-aware and the self-destructive, and also in her struggle between freedom and the protective safety of family. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

My so-called parents hate my boyfriend, Shrimp. I'm not sure they even believe he is my boyfriend. They take one look at his five-foot-five, surfer-shirt-wearin', baggy-jeans-slouchin', Pop Tart-eatin', spiked-hair-head self and you can just see confusion firebombs exploding in their heads, like they are thinking, Oh no, Cyd Charisse, that young man is not your homes.

Dig this: He is.

At least Shrimp always remembers to call my mother "Mrs." instead of just grunting in her direction, like most guys my age do. And no parent could deny that hanging out with Shrimp is an improvement over Justin, my ex, from my old prep school. Justin got me into trouble, big time. I'm so over the Justin stage.

Not like Sid and Nancy care much. I have done my parents the favor of becoming more or less invisible.

Sid, my father, calls me a "recovering hellion." Sid's actually my stepfather. You could say I hardly know my real father. I met him at an airport once when I was five. He was tall and skinny and had ink black hair, like me. We ate lunch in a smoky pub at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. I did not like my hamburger so my real dad opened his briefcase and offered me a piece of homemade gingerbread he had wrapped in tinfoil.

He bought me a brown rag doll at the airport gift shop. The cashier had made the doll herself. She said she had kept the doll hidden under her cash register waiting for just the right little girl. My real dad gave the cashier a one-hundred-dollar bill and told her to keep the change. I named my dolly Gingerbread.

Nancy and I were on our way to San Francisco to become Sid's family. My real dad was on his way back to New York, to his real wife and family. They don't know about me.

I'm fairly sure that my real dad's wife would not mind that I make scissors cuts on my arms and then pick the scabs. His real wife probably makes fresh gingerbread every day and writes Things To Do lists and does her own grocery shopping instead of having a housekeeper and a driver do everything for her, like Nancy does.

Nancy only met Justin once, at the expulsion hearing. The headmaster told her Justin and I were caught fooling around in a room loaded with Jack Daniels and prescription bottles. In flagrante delicto were the words the headmaster used. I failed Latin.

Nancy said Justin was from a "wonderful Connecticut family" and how could I shame her and Sid like that. It was Justin who was selling the ecstasy out of his dorm room, not me. It was Justin who said he pulled out in time. Sid and Nancy never knew about that part.

Nancy came into my room one night after I returned home to San Francisco. Sid and my younger half-sibs were at Father's Night at their French immersion school. "I hope your friends use condoms," Nancy said, which was funny because she knows Shrimp is my only friend. She threw a box of Trojans onto the lace-trimmed four-poster bed that I hate. Shrimp is a safety boy, he takes care of those things. If it had been Shrimp back in boarding school, he would have come with me to the clinic.

"Can I have a futon on the floor instead of this stupid princess bed?" I said. The thought of my mother even knowing about contraception, much less doling it out, was beyond comprehension, much less discussion.

Nancy sighed. Sighing is what she does instead of eating. "I paid ten thousand dollars to redecorate this room while you were at boarding school. No, you may not, Cyd Charisse."

Everybody in my family calls me by my first and middle name since my dad's name is pronounced the same as my first name. When she was twenty years old and pregnant with me, Nancy thought she would eventually marry my real dad. She named me after this dancer-actress from like a million years ago who starred in this movie that Nancy and real-dad saw on their first date, before she found out he had a whole other life. The real Cyd Charisse is like this incredibly beautiful sex goddess. I am okay looking. I could never be superhuman sexy like the real Cyd Charisse. I mean there is only room for so much grace and beauty in one person named Cyd Charisse, not two.

Nancy fished a pack of Butter Rum LifeSavers out of her designer jacket and held them out to me. "Want a piece of my dinner?"

Copyright © 2002 by Rachel Cohn

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0689843372
• ISBN 13: 9780689843372
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176