Will I love Kairos?

It covers the period of the reunification of East and West Germany, which is a fascinating time in German and World History

This book deserves all the acclaim it has attracted in the last year: it's a fascinating, moving, immersive read. The plot is propulsive but it can be enjoyed on many levels. I'm very interested in the German Democratic Republic and found the historical/ political background of the novel beautifully rendered. But it is not a novel about politics, as Erpenbeck has said in interviews. Even as world historical events are unfolding around them, or even as they navigate the restrictions of a dictatorial surveillance state from which there can be no escape, the characters in this book are absorbed by… show more.

I love the East Berlin setting of this book, just before and after the Wall comes done. It’s perfect for an intense, melancholy love story between a young woman in her late teens and a married writer who is older than the young woman’s parents.

As I read the book, I couldn’t help comparing their rocky relationship to the state of East and West Germany and how things were so contentious back then, even after reunification. I was also a college student in the late 1980s and related to the idealism of the young woman during the end of the… show more.