Reviews - Marzahn, Mon Amour

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293 reviews for:

Marzahn, Mon Amour

Katja Oskamp

3.92 AVERAGE

serendipitysbooks's review against another edition

4.0

informative reflective medium-paced

Marzahan, Mon Amour opens with a middle-aged author who is down on her publishing luck and is retraining as a chiropodist. The rest of the book unfolds in a series of short storyish vignettes, each one focussing on one of her clients or coworkers at the salon in Marzahan, a Berlin suburb in what was East Germany. This was a really warm-hearted read. The clients - all ordinary people, mostly older and often down on their luck, battling ill-health, loneliness or poverty - were treated so kindly by the narrator and their stories told in a very tender fashion . Each vignette was perfectly self-contained, but combined they built up a layered picture of the area, one that highlighted the impact of history, politics, and social policy on people, that really humanising the impacts of the former GDR. Being somewhat older myself I also appreciated the author’s thoughts on the realities of middle age. All in all a surprisingly compelling read, much more so than you would expect from a book about someone looking after other people’s feet to be.

Content Warnings

fluschita's review against another edition

3.0

reflective medium-paced

eva_hennessy's review

4.0

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

karokafka's review against another edition

3.0

funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

lenex's review against another edition

4.0

Ach, das hat gut getan, gerade in Zeiten wie diesen. Respektvoll erzählt, teilweise lustig, teilweise tragisch, immer menschlich.
Am liebsten habe ich dabei die Passagen über die Erzählerin selbst, ihre Empfindungen als Frau über 40, ihren Weg in die Fußpflege und ihre Alltagsbeobachtungen gelesen.