Reviews and Comments

It's rather 2.5 stars.

I liked parts of the book. In places, however, I felt the book was not thought through to the end. And for me there were too many stylistic breaks in the main character's text passages as well as blocks were things seemed to be missing in her train of thoughts. I also felt that the change in her moods was not well described stylistically, but seemed more like something that was put in to emphasize her character but was not done in a progressively well done way. The course of the plot itself was also not sufficiently logically explained to me in some places, but seemed erratic.

In general, I felt that the written portrayal of the main character and her emotional actions and reactions, which were strongly based on (supposed) logic, and her rationalized, sometimes fashistiod attitude and decisions were well portrayed. However, her room for maneuver or lack of maneuver due to her strong self-centeredness also leaves many questions unanswered about the structure of the ministry and its power and environment. In my opinion, there were discrepancies here in particular between the developments hinted at and the way they were handled (for reasons of course, that the reader learns later on, but still seems a bit off at parts), but even this was not elaborated enough to avoid ending up in speculation.

The comparison between the forlornness of different types of immigrants was niceley done, but also here, the lack of deeper talk of her Dad and his influence on her mother and thus, possible grounding effects of him in comparison to her and her charge, fell short.

All in all, an interesting approach that unfortunately didn't talk enough about the background (e.g. why were there still resources to build the machine, ...) and that has left too much in the way of possible alternatives and plot developments for possible speculation.

I'm sorry, but I just don't want to read any more books in which the main character is made fun of from the very first sentence. Where every sentence is an insult to idiosyncrasies and where power imbalances are used as a joke. I didn't get past the first few chapters.

Now I've read in retrospect what the book is based on (inspired by the Sixties Scoop). And thus, another even stronger no. How does one come up with the idea of writing something like that? The story is not cosy, treatment of the main character is not cosy, the background story is so much not cosy.

I really wanted to love that series. And the fact, that it still resonates with me is clearly a sign, that it was something speical. And maybe, we should remove ourselves from these star ratings, which say more about what we want from a book than the book quality of the book itself.

Still, I really wanted to love this series. As an alternative to Who, which we are not naming anymore. And this series had a female protagonist, a group of four that all did not quite fall into the usual construct of (German YAO) groups (like TKKG, ???, !!!, Die Wilden Hühner), the female lead is albino. Her best friend has a single mother, who works most of the time and has experienced a lot of trauma her in life. It discusses rascial topics on so many levels. And so on and so on.

But somehow, I'm really really bothered by all these novels (not only this series), that have elders, who are not helping, higher beings, who only expect and demand (which is their nature), and youth, that is supposed to figure everything out on their own, grow on their own, and thus, suffer a lot in the process.

It is my age, it is my social standing right now, my current being of overprotection, of helping others, that criticizes this. And yet, I'm yearning for more softness, for more community, for more growth together and through others, less expected and normalized violence, less normalized misogyny, less social status and self worth through money and power...

Still pondering this book.

I really liked it and it felt like something different. I liked how certain phases were just skipped over while still being able to convey uniformity in the main characters life.

On the other hand, authors tend to fall back into the same patterns: the girl, that is not like other girls (though this girl at least had female friends). The lost boy, that is searching for his one true quest. And of course it is a girl. And I'm sorry, but I do not like these repetitive phrases, where again and again the in the same character traits are always listed, which also correspond to the main characteristics of the main character, as well as her visually prominent features.

Also, what is it with these older side characters, that play such vital roles, know everything, don't tell everything and let everyone discover everything on their own time, even if it kills them. What about responsible grown ups?

Still. I really liked this book. Its fastness, its emptiness, how they both carried it all so well.