Cursed Bread A Novel

For the most part I found the style interesting, though there was not much substance

don't listen to tiktokers, saying this is good

i feel like if i read this one more time i’d be smarter

** spoiler alert ** I dont think I can say much about this book without giving away a major plot point. I personally don't think it's a spoiler since it's hinted at in the book's title. Just a heads up. I'm pretty sure I would've stopped reading this book if I didn't know that this book is a fictional retelling of a mysterious mass poisoning in a french village - mentioned in the book under the author's notes. But beyond the intrigue around this incident (which unfolds in the last 10% of the book), I found the book painstakingly slow with ambiguous details. Dream-like details, so bizzare that I wondered if they had any significance at all. But I guess it corresponds with the book's overarching theme of blinding obsession and desire. The main characters, the village baker and especially his wife, obsess over another couple to the extent of being unknowingly complicit in poisoning the town's only supply of bread. "The world is only ever one breach away from being unpeeled entirely, one tragedy, one glimpse behind the curtain." The tragedy here being the mass poisoning, pushing the main character to snap out of her obsessive trance and either see things for what they are or lose touch with reality. That last part is left vague and up for interpretation.