Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
slow-paced
This is the kind of book that requires focus and a quiet place to read. Jenny Erpenbeck's writing is refined and dense. The story follows Katharina, a 19-year-old, and Hans, a writer in his 50s, as their relationship unravels, mirroring the decline of the GDR in the 1980s and early 90s. The novel offers a glimpse into daily life in East Berlin before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, weaving in reflections on the country’s past. Throughout the book, one question lingers: how did it all go so wrong?
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship
Minor: Abortion, Pregnancy
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Perhaps I’m just not intelligent or educated enough to truly understand this book, or maybe it’s just shit. I’m leaning towards the latter.
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I found this book very tough to get through. While I thought the setting of the book was extremely interesting and added to the experience, I found the relationship outlined in the book absolutely insufferable. Hans’ emotional abuse of Katharina was frustrating, and her tolerance of it through years and years even more so. I also found the style of switching perspectives between the two, even sometimes mid sentence was hard to follow. Maybe if I was more literarily capable/knowledgable this would have been more of a moving novel, but as a reader for pure pleasure I found Kairos more of a laborious piece.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
When I first opened this book and saw the way the dialogues were formatted - with no quotation marks and built into the paragraphs - I already knew this would be a hard read. While this stylistic choice worked well in some scenes overall it just made a novel hard to read and I often had to reread parts of it to fully grasp what is going on. The oversaturation with references didn't help either. However, my main issue with the book is that the background of the story, the life in DDR and the fall of the Berlin Wall, was way way more interesting than the actual storyline. Reading about Hans' and Katharina's unhealthy relationship was not only tiring but also simply infuriating.