Reviews - Böses Glück: Storys

252 reviews for:

Böses Glück: Storys

Tove Ditlevsen

3.88 AVERAGE

alina_kolpakova's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 31%

audiobook format is not for this book

gazelly's review against another edition

4.25

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

iste's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 35%

Series of stories of women in unhappy relationships. All very real and unfortunately commonplace, yet the writing seems to tell more than show he reader. It seemed repetitive as well and didn't engage me.

emilychau's review against another edition

2.5

emotional reflective 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: Yes

cruelaz's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

withanhauser's review against another edition

3.0

I read Ditlevsen's Copenhagen Trilogy earlier this year, and liked it a lot. This collection largely reads as (somewhat repetitive) snippets from the second part of the trilogy (i.e., Youth), stories of young women in failing relationships, struggling with poverty, writing, or both. As with the trilogy, there's an undercurrent of darkness to many of the stories; one story ends, "She knew beforehand it would hurt" (51), another, "[A]n unnamed sadness swells inside my mind, because they are all dead or disappeared, and my brother and I no longer communicate" (184). No story is particularly long (the longest is 16 pages), and most total about ~eight or nine pages, which results in 21 stories across 184 pages. Combined with the similar subject matter across stories, it makes for a sort of narrow-feeling, slightly tiring collection. But, Ditlevsen's writing is excellent--she conveys despondency and sadness so well. In "The Umbrella," a woman wants things "unreasonably" and her "entire character consist[s] of a pile of memories without a pattern or a plan" (11). In "My Wife Doesn't Dance," a woman overhears her husband stating, on a phone call, that she doesn't dance, and her mind wanders to the point where she fundamentally views him, and how she thinks he views her, differently. I enjoyed the third part of the Copenhagen Trilogy--"Dependency"--the best, with its sudden shift to addiction and lost time. This collection seems to pre-date that time in Ditlevsen's life, and its subject matter correspondingly differs. Still, the writing is good, and the darkness--albeit more based on despondency than dependency--is there.