Berlin - Bea Setton

Berlin - Bea Setton

She read

Release Date: May 16, 2023 

Daphne, an Oxford graduate with no job, no occupational prospects, and wealthy parents, moves to Berlin, ostensibly to study German, although she tells people she is in a graduate program for philosophy.  However, her emotional troubles travel with her, disrupting the life she hoped to build in a new country.

After having just read two very intensely wrenching novels, I was ready for something different. This was not it!  This one was also intense. Some have called it witty or darkly funny.  Perhaps it is my background as a mental health professional and I look at it differently from a lot of readers, but I did not find humor.  Yet, it provided good insight into the pathology of mental disturbance.  Tormented with doubt, self loathing, self delusion and an eating disorder, the new life she so wanted spins out of control.  Yes, while some of her difficulties may be the result of the treatment of women in society, at their base is her emotional instability.

This is a debut novel and it is well written.  This was an engrossing, short read, with some insight into the psyche of a disturbed young woman as well as the obstacles women often have to face in today’s society.  There may be a fine line between what one must do to adapt in a misogynist world and pathology, but Daphne, I feel, has crossed that line and is in need of help.  

Thanks to #netgallely and #penquinbooks for the ARC.

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