Friday, October 20, 2023

Review: Bee Bakshi and the Gingerbread Sisters by Emi Pinto

I really truly wanted to love this book. As I bought it because of that most adorable cover. It looks so cute. And spooky. But it sadly was not. Sigh. I'm going to struggle a little with this review. I'm giving the book two stars. I really wanted to enjoy it. And I very much did not. Some parts were good, but most were bad. Which makes me sad.

I have a whole lot to share about this book. So many thoughts and feelings about it. But going to start with the positive. The writing was pretty good, I didn't actually have any issues with it, which was nice. I adored Lucas and his cat, Albus. As they were the bright spots of this story. And liked the relationship Bee had with her grandmother.

But those were sadly pretty much all that I liked about this one. Ack. And I have a lot of thoughts about it, though I'm only going to share some of it. First, I feel tricked by the summary. They did not spend a summer at the cottage. It was one week. Rude. She did not spend much time at this magical house at the other side of the lake, it was one night. And the witch part was all a lie, mostly. So disappointing. Only real part was Lucas, who was pretty dorky. But Bee hated him at first. And that made me somewhat hate her, sadly. And oh, I did not have the best connection at all with this twelve-year-old main girl. I wanted to love her. She looks so adorable. And her family was great. First, it sounded like her family was huge. It was not. It was her and her parents and her grandmother. Yeah. But anyway. Bee wasn't a nice person. At all. To anyone. Hmph.

And that bothered me so much. She treated her parents horribly. She treated Lucas horribly too when she met him, and for a long time after as well. I guess we were supposed to feel sorry for her. But I didn't. She used to be a weird girl herself, years ago. Always left out. Until she met Kitty, her best friend. Well, so she thinks she is. After she met her, she changed. As Kitty did not approve of the things that Bee liked. As in her family's food. And so Bee no longer liked her parent's cooking. That just. That bothered me too much.

We don't even get to see Kitty in this story. As the book takes place during that one week at the cottage. But Bee thinks of her a few times. She is always very embarrassed of her parents and everyone around her. I hated it. So much. So yeah. Supposed to feel sorry for her, as she was forced to change who she was to be friends with a girl who did not truly like her. Yeah. I didn't buy it. And I did not feel sorry for Bee. Because none of it was a good enough excuse for how she was with her parents or towards Lucas. Sigh.

I'm not fully sure what this book was about. I see others say it was about Bee learning to love herself. Well. No. It was not. Because I do not felt like she did. She cried a little towards the end. I did not care. She did not end her friendship with Kitty. We did not get to see anything more about that, and that was disappointing. Bee had a favorite author, and that whole story line was just weird, ha. This book had a little bit of magic. I liked a little of it. Other parts were weird. Like the magic birds or whatever they were.

I guess the book was about the girl Alina, who Bee met at the other side of the lake. She met her once and was obsessed with her. I did not get it. Sigh. I just did not care much for this book at all, which was disappointing. I tried. It was impossible. I wish Bee had been kinder. Sure, she got better. But it was too late for me. Even with how short this book was. It also felt like she was way younger than twelve at first, more like eight. So that was a little weird as well. Anyway. I did adore Lucas. And their mostly friendship.

I have already written too much about this book. And yet I'm sure I still have some thoughts that I have not shared yet. Oops. I just. I so wanted to love Bee Bakshi and the Gingerbread Sisters. But I did not. Had hoped it would be such a great spooky ghost story. It was not. Sure, there were a couple of ghost. And they were fully boring. Sigh. The cat was the only bright spot, and even that wasn't normal, which made it a little weird. But yeah. I'm still glad I read this book, as I just could not ignore that cover, haha.

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