Gingerbread

by Rachel Cohn
PRMS hardcover 172 pages
genre: YA realistic fiction, coming-of-age

Cyd Charisse is an edgy teenager who is living with her mom and stepdad. They get tired of her "hellion" behavior and her time spent with "that boy" (aka Shrimp, her surfer boyfriend) so they send her to New York to spend three weeks with her bio-dad Frank. She has only met Frank once when she was five years old. He gave her a rag doll and some gingerbread, so she named the doll Gingerbread. She confides in her doll and still carries it around as a sixteen year old girl.

Cyd is a believable character with a painful secret. This is an odd, but engaging story. It is definitely for my more mature readers.