Did not finish. I was unable to engage with the story and found the characters forgettable. Not my cup of tea.

I bailed on this book. I just couldn't get into it, despite two attempts. The plot felt scattered and I wasn't able to get invested enough into the characters to care about a plot potentially developing. This one just wasn't working for me.

A great book. Very glad I had the chance to read and highly suggest it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this title.

I'm not sure why there are so many low ratings for this book. I found it really engaging and a truly fascinating and atmospheric story about an interesting time in our recent history. Sure, the characters are terribly likeable but they are real, fleshed out, and felt viable. I really enjoyed this, couldn't put it down. The teen book group I run is going to read it as well. It was edgy and different.

Solid start but ultimately disappointing.

I wanted this to be good. British students on an overseas study visit in East Germany at the time of the fall of the wall sounded promising.

The book starts well with some rich character development told from the different viewpoints of the two main female characters. The GDR details are solid and well observed.

Where it fell down was towards the end where some of the characters actions seemed implausibly easy.

All in all a really interesting approach, but ultimately let down by poor plot development

I only made it 9% through this book before I decided there was no way I could carry on! I was having doubts at 2% and hated Karen by 4% so it went wrong instantly for me.

The main character is awful, all she did was criticise literally everything. Students who care too much and students who care too little. People who are outgoing and people who are more introverted. People who dress the same as everyone else and people who dress differently. I hated her and couldn't continue in her head for another 91%.

Concept is interesting so it's a real shame Karen was so insufferable.

This book didn't have my atention, I just culdn't make myself read it. It wasn't a bad book, just not my cup of tea.

I only read the few first chapters. This book wasn't doing anything for me. It meanders along at a snail's pace. The prologue doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the book. The narrator goes on and on about boys. It doesn't seem like the author is very familiar with German culture or film photography. The use of present tense leaves a lot of sentences that feel awkward and incorrect even though they aren't.