'Love in Five Acts explores what is left to five women when they have fulfilled their roles as wives, mothers, friends, lovers, sisters and daughters. As teenagers they experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall, but freedom brings with it another form of pressure: the pressure of choice.'

As the title indicates, we have five women with five stories and each explores the possibilities faced by those women, each is connected to the other in some way:

Paula, the book seller has lost a child and a husband; to me her story is one where so many of her choices were stripped from her through no fault of her own. It is a story of deep unfathomable grief and her journey back to the surface.

Judith, the doctor is the diametric opposite; she is fiercely independent and free to make her choices, but they leave her emotionally stranded. She searches for a men online, her approach is scientific, her needs appear to be physical but does any of it bring her happiness..

Brida, the writer is faced with a truly modern choice; that of her career or her family. Her story goes beyond the juggling that we are all faced with and exposes what it really is to be a mother of this time.

Malika, the musician has spent her life fighting for attention and recognition. Brought up in a highly intellectual family where opinions are held above emotional support of any kind, her choice in a partner is her form of rebellion.

Finally, Jorinde. the actor is pregnant with her third child and faces a crossroads where she must decide whether she stays in a toxic marriage or provides for her family alone.

Daniela Krien has been compared to Sally Rooney, I would argue that her writing is more akin to Rachel Cusk. Her prose are pared back and clean, her observations incisive and razor sharp. When I read translated fiction I do wonder how the feel and style of a book would change if I read it in its native language; how much of the nuance in a book is lost in language and even at the hands of the translator. That said nothing is lost here, it is a beautifully crafted novel.

Krien seems to build intensity will each woman; with Paula, we are held at arm's length - we have to squint to bring her into focus, she seems so far away. By the time we arrive at Jorinde; she is in full technicolor, fully formed and utterly accessible. The connections between the women, also become more impactful as we go through the book - each offering a taste of what is to come but at the same time giving us an added dimension to the women before.

A slow start, but this novel ended as a first class read for me. Highly recommend.

Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien, originally published in German as Die Liebe Im Ernstfall ( “Love in the event of an emergency”) and translated to English by Jamie Bulloch.

A disjointed set of lives connected loosely by love, familial loyalty and political opinion. We follow 5 women between Berlin and Leipzig, as they wrestle with experiences that bind women together; marriage, motherhood, careers and care duties.

Understanding one event from multiple perspectives of different protaginists provides us the reader, with a zoomed out view of any given momentious occasion. It is easy in one person narration to fall for the bias of our characters, they are human after all. In Krien's clever choices, we are able to see each characters bias, understand better their choices and maybe even empathize with what a reader may deem, a poor decision.

Krien's Writing is quiet, the story seemingly unoriginal, however its occasional intermissions on patratichal living in Germany, the political disturbances post Berlin Wall and the discussion of unconvential family dynamics compelled me to keep reading.

As with my previous ARC, Folklorn, I was instantly drawn to the title, cover and description of this book. But again it didn't quite deliver.

There is beauty in this understated character study of five women, as they go through both the big and small things in life, but ultimately I didn't feel there was a story here. Which doesn't necessarily matter, except in this case there wasn't enough to compensate for the lack of traditional narrative in the way of depth of character or relationships. I didn't feel like I got to know the characters well enough, and the jumping back and forth in time made for a confusing and choppy structure. Admittedly this is exacerbated by the advanced copy that I received as the formatting is messy with line breaks in the middle of every other sentence or so - which I assume is not intentional. So the finished version should be at least a little easier to follow.

Also, I cannot escape the feeling that there is some intended significance to the ending which I just didn't see, as for me it feels kind of like the writer decided to stop at a random point.

The first three stories were the best/most interesting in my opinion, and I definitely enjoyed parts of it, but overall this was just an okay read for me.

3.5 stars

This book was a bumpy ride. It started off quite strong with Paula’s story but got impossibly boring somewhere around Judith’s story. Then came Brida, whose part I liked. That was followed by Malika - the best written character according to me, only to be let down by Jorinde’s part.
While reading the book, I had trouble remembering the stories of the previous characters. I absolutely loved Mailka’s part and was disappointed when she became a secondary character during the last part (Jorinde’s story).

Something that I did appreciate a lot was Krien’s portrayal of how these women dealt with their problems, especially about children, work and relationships. Some readers might argue that these depictions featured some sexist and outdated ideas, but I think it was an honest introspection on how intricate human relationships are.

I would have preferred if this book took only three characters and did proper justice to all of them, instead of writing a rushed part for all of the five characters. The writing is great in some parts, but I think trying to condense so much in 300 pages produced a confusing and somewhat incoherent narrative. It’s a shame really because Malika’s part is so beautifully written that a book that centred around her would have been absolutely fantastic. I feel as if I was offered a look into what could have been, and now I’m utterly bitter because it’s nowhere near that.
(I’m surprised that it’s getting this strong of a reaction from me - a clear testament to Daniela’s writing ability, I think!)

Thank you NetGalley for the review copy.

I wanted to love this book because I love reading about relationships but I couldn't really get into it. I felt disconnected from the characters somehow. I just never really got into their skin.
I wonder if this is to do with reading it in translation or if it's simple not written in a style that I like.

Exploring the relationships of five different women, this novel both intrigued me but sadly left me feeling disconnected from the characters. Each is given a section of the book and although their stories do interconnect the relationships between them all are on briefly touched upon. This allows each story to stand alone and individually they do stand up as realistic and touching portrayals of modern woman’s experience.
The demise of a relationship after the loss of a child, maintaining your independence whilst wanting to enjoy your sexuality, and blended families, are all themes that the author covers with sensitivity.

The flaws and foibles of each of the characters help them to feel like real people, and there’s nothing saccharine about the depictions of the relationships in the book. I think ultimately it was the style of the writing that stopped me feeling much of an emotional connection; it’s all quite matter-of-fact.

Although I’d have liked to feel some emotion given the themes, the different experiences covered kept my interest and it was satisfying to read something written in a style that I’ve never encountered before.

Thank you to Quercus Books for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting when I started reading this book but it wasn't this!

This is a story about five women who are all loosely linked together - by family, by friendship and by work. I found a couple of the women much more interesting than the others and felt like I'd like to have spent more time with them.

I didn't particularly enjoy the ending - it felt very abrupt. I didn't expect a resolution but it still disappointed. I also found the way the women essentially orbited around men quite bothersome.

The translation was well done and maintained the standard of writing. The way in which the fall of the Berlin Wall is weaved into the story made this particularly interesting. It's a reminder that Germany still has this division which impacted their lives.

‘Love in Five Acts’ by Daniela Krien, translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch, is a soaring page-turner of an exploration of love, feminism and choice.

Krien manages to cover an impressive breadth of themes in just 250 pages through the interweaving stories of Paula, Judith, Brida, Malika and Jorinde.

Paula, who works in a book shop, bonds over shared grief and some common interests with Wenzel after her estrangement from Ludger, the father of her daughter, Leni. Her relationship with Ludger, an architect and self-styled eco warrior, echoed her emotionally-distant relationship with her do-gooder parents.

Judith is a long-standing friend of Paula and a lonely and hard-working doctor struggling to find love through online dating. Judith loves classical music, horses and sex. She doesn’t want to have children and struggles to relate to her female friends as mothers.

Brida is a trained hunter and an author whom Judith is helping with her latest book. During a deceptively amicable family holiday with her ex-partner, their two daughters and his new girlfriend, Svenja, Brida wrestles with the choice between being a partner to Götz, a devoted mother, and her writing.

Malika is a violinist, music teacher, cat owner and patient of Judith’s who longs to be a mother but struggles with infertility. The abandoned ex-partner of Götz, she secretly has an unhealthy obsession with Brida and a very strained relationship with her parents and sister, Jorinde.

Jorinde is an actress in a failed marriage to Torben. She is pregnant with her third baby by a well-known actor who is not her husband. Jorinde is desperate to be loved by her sister, Malika, and is jealous of her naturally maternal nature. Both sisters’ lives are changed forever when they decide to move in to an apartment together.

I really enjoyed the flashbacks weaved throughout this novel. The prose, despite being written in the third person, feels like a stream of the characters’ consciousness. Krien skilfully evokes the involuntary nature of intrusive memories and builds empathy for each of her characters through the gradual revelation of their histories. I sympathised with each of the lead characters despite their variety of experiences and perspectives.
The interwoven relationships between each of the characters serves to emphasise both the idiosyncrasies of each and the overarching theme of the novel: the choices which all women are forced to make but which don’t appear to burden any of the men.
This novel explores freedom, choice, marriage, parenthood, sex, family, infertility, miscarriage, grief, jealousy, ambition, love, friendship, infidelity, mental ill health and the impact of our parents on our adult romantic relationships without at any point seeming overly sentimental or tragic.
I feel that this book would translate wonderfully into a stage play or film.

I feel the novel would have been even better if the character of Svenja had been less one-dimensional, however this is somewhat understandable given that the reader only sees her through the eyes of Brida. Furthermore, I feel that the male characters in the novel are rather stereotyped.
Krien does an excellent job of portraying some of the difficulties inherent in being a woman in the twenty-first century, however I feel the novel’s analysis of love and its value as a feminist text is somewhat limited by the exclusive inclusion of traditional heterosexual roles and relationships. I would have liked to have seen an exploration by the author of whether women in romantic relationships with other women would encounter similar choices and dilemmas.
I felt frustrated at times that the feelings of each of the characters in this novel, even those who choose to pursue a career over family, revolve so entirely around their relationships with men.

Some readers may find Krien’s brand of feminism a little outdated however I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fiction with feminist themes or which explores the complexities of human relationships.

This is a lovely book, comprising stories of 5 women who are, in one way or another, linked to each other. Each of the chapters focuses on the story of one of them, and we get a picture of where they are and how they got there.

As a warning, the stories deal with topics such as the death of an infant, abortions, and infidelity, which might be triggering for some. I found them very well written and I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which I read in a couple of sittings.

This book is about the story of five women: Paula, who has lost a child, and a husband. Judith, who thinks more about horses than men, but still looks for love online. Brida, a writer who needs to choose between her work and her family. Malika, who struggles for recognition from her parents. And her sister Jorinde, pregnant for the third time and facing a divorce. These are the stories of women who have fulfilled their roles as wives, mothers, friends, lovers, sisters, and daughters.

I loved this book, and even though I felt more connected to some characters than others, I ended up reading it in two sittings. Both the language and style are simple, which makes it accessible for everyone. I liked how the stories are subtly intertwined and how all the women face differently their relationships. That being said, all the male characters in this book are despicable and toxic. Long story short, this is an entertaining contemporary translated fiction book, and I would recommend it to everyone.

Love In Five Acts will be published on 29 April. I read an advance digital copy courtesy of the publisher @quercusbooks @maclehosepress @millsreid11 via @netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.

#LoveInFiveActs #DanielaKrien #quercusbooks #maclehosepress

Love in Five Acts is a superb novel by Daniela Krien, originally published in German as Die Liebe Im Ernstfall (literally, “Love in the event of emergency”) and translated into English by Jamie Bulloch.

It is a portrait of five different women in their thirties and forties, navigating this chapter of their lives as they deal with the breakdown of relationships, past love, infidelity, motherhood, childlessness and friendship. Each story overlaps with the next, drawing you in and creating a beautiful flow to the book.

Earthy and captivating, there is a sharpness to the writing and the author provides an uncanny insight into both the fragility and strength of women in this period of their lives. Written in a contemporary style with bare prose, if you enjoyed Sally Rooney’s novels, I think this is one to add to your list.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a Germanophile, so this was right up my street, though actually I think it will have much wider appeal. Recommended. And that cover - wow 🤩. 4/5⭐️

*Love In Five Acts will be published on 29 April. I read an advance digital copy courtesy of the publisher @quercusbooks @maclehosepress via @netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.*

#LoveInFiveActs #DanielaKrien #DieLiebeImErnstfall #quercusbooks #maclehosepress

This book is an unexpected gem. I liked the sound of it but wasn't expecting to love it as I did.
Maybe it was because so much of the story resonated with me - small details like the sound of the swifts arrival in Spring.

But it think it was more than just a personal resonance. I loved the writing and the theme is universal. Five women finding their way through the twists and turns of love, seeking to be true to themselves at the same time as make connections with others.

Judith is independent to the point of being dismissive of others, Brida is a writer who has to constantly juggle her time for creativity and her loyalty to her family. Malika has to deal with abandonment and is hungry for acceptance. Jorinda, Bridas sister, is facing having her third child, alone. Paula lost her child and then her husband, how will she cope with her grief?

This book is an exploration of what it means to be a woman, how to manage motherhood, love, loss, family, creativity and personal identity in the modern world where there are so many choices, but where we are also still trapped in age-old patterns.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt the author knew me! I laughed out loud many times in recognition of some detail of the women’s lives. I marked so many passages that its hard to chose one for this review. But this one demonstrates the authors subtlety and deep understanding. of human beings.
Paula has lost her child and her husband.
“Everything had to be measured against her suffering. Hardly anything passed the test”
The book is filled with a deep sensitivity to the human condition.. I felt changed by reading it.

This book follows the separate stories of 5 women all loosely interwoven set between Berlin and Leipzig. Each has their own story and struggles which provides an interesting change to the book at each new dynamic. It is so refreshing to read a book with 5 strong natural female characters at the core without fanfare and seeming to make a political point rather than the usual female characters offered.

It is a beautifully written translation but I often find that translations loose the cultural and social dynamics that flow within English novels and this in parts felt rather stilted to me as though the story didn't quite develop far enough. the ending seemed very abrupt and as though there were a couple of chapters missing but this could again be a result of the cultural differences within German writing.

I definitely enjoyed this book and appreciated the way in which the author transported me to a very different world with beautiful description and setting.

‘Love in Five Acts’ by Daniela Krien was nothing like what I was expecting. Five women with five very different stories who are all interlinked in some way. Despite being translated from German nothing was lost in the translation and the excellent writing shone through. I think the fact that it was set in East Germany made it even more interesting.

An absorbing read, this looks at love from different perspectives of women in different times in their lives, which feels like a series of short stories but link in a flowing way which is really satisfying. Although this has been translated from Swedish, it has both a great sense of place and their society but also feels very relatable. Recommend for anyone looking to branch out from “chick lit” into more literary fiction as this would be a great stepping stone.

This book was a reminder to me of how much I like translated fiction, and how fascinating reading books set in former East Germany are.
The five acts are the lives & loves of five women whose stories intersect in a variety of ways. The book is frank and forthright but the women's stories really wormed their way deeply into me and I very much felt I was a fly on the wall in all of their stories.
Like in real life the characters are multi dimensional and you like/loathe/pity/feel for them all.

I really enjoyed Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien. I read it in two sittings. This is a beautiful written book and tells the story through the eyes of five women, all of whose lives are interweaved at some stage. They are all trying to navigate through adulthood, dealing with relationships, motherhood and loss. This is a character driven novel and whether or not you like all the characters or infact agree with their decisions, you will find yourself invested in each of their stories.

Thank you to Netgally and the publishers for the chance to read this book.

This is an unusual book and it’s not always easy to work out what the point is but there is quite a lot of love and there are quite a few acts!

The book starts with Paula and Ludger who have a kind of so-so relationship and then tragically suffer some misfortune and split up before she meets a new love and, I think we are meant to understand, a kind of compromised but true love. Goodbye Paula!

Paula had a flatmate called Judith so now we get Judith’s story. She’s a doctor, fond of horses and looks for love on some kind of professional dating site. She’s probably looking for the wrong sort of love in the wrong sort of place but it doesn’t seem to work out for her and then she meets Gregor and doesn’t seem quite able to manage a relationship with him, has a few disasters and stumbles on. She’s better at medicine than love!

At the end of her story, she sits with him at a book reading given by a patient called Brida Lichtblau. Judith advised on the medical details in the novel and has become friendly with Brida. Brida has some children and some crises with a partner Gotz who now becomes a key player because we get the story of Malika, his original partner, and Svenja who came after Brida. However, Gotz is now having a clandestine relationship with Brida so the timeline is a bit hard to work out.

We then go on to a diversion into Svenja’s story and then into Malika’s. She has had a difficult relationship all her life with her sister Jorinde probably because of their opinionated and useless parents, Viktoria and Helmut. More things happen and the best you can say is it could be worse.

So, it’s a confusing story with a lot of characters who are marginally related to greater or lesser degrees. Although it’s a set of stories about women, the charismatic Gotz is an important linking thread in three of the relationships and that leads onto a kind of worry about the book. All of the women seem to have been obsessed about sexual partnerships and choices to a significant degree and around half of the choices, at least, have not turned out for the best. That’s weird. You want these women to be a bit more autonomous. They also seem to have children by accident or with men they don’t really like because they want motherhood which seems unnecessary in the 21st-century. And, they seem to do quite a few things they don’t really like to please the men who appear to coast through life without many cares, with little sense of obligation and responsibility, and a limited capacity to form relationships.

Having said that, I have a suspicion that all this might appeal to a lot of readers and that many women might identify with these, appealingly drawn and authentic, characters. It may be quite appropriate for a book about women and their relationships to be confused especially when the women are not pictured as helpless and incompetent in other ways and there is a kind of truth – and honesty – in this aspect of the novel.

It’s an entertaining read. If you are a man you can reflect on the impressions, anxieties and lusts you have probably aroused in your past without the faintest idea of what was going on! If you’re a woman you might just say, yes this is exactly what life is like! Anyway, it’s worth reading and thinking about and it might make you want to do a few things differently in the future.

Grief is difficult for anyone to deal with and it can be overpowering. Love in Five Acts is the story of five women and their journey of grief and love.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me read an e-copy in exchange for an honest review. I read the English translation of this book.

This book was a beautifully written exploration of the intertwining lives of five different women, and their different experiences of adulthood, motherhood, love and loss. I was impressed by how absorbed I was by each woman’s story, even when I didn’t agree with their actions, and how quickly I empathised with them. I saw some reviews saying they were irritated by the stories of Judith and Brida, and although both of these characters are difficult and have unlikable aspects I thought the author did a really great job at still enabling us to understand their motivations. I was heartbroken by Paula’s story, and really like reading the stories of Malika and Jorinde attempting to rebuild their sisterly bond.

I also found it really interesting to read the elements of German history which were woven into the storyline. All of these women were coming of age around the time of the fall of the Berlin wall, and so it is fascinating to see how this had (or hadn’t) impacted their worldview.

A very minor critique, but after really enjoying the book I found that I was left wanting by the ending. The final page seemed to appear suddenly and it felt as though it was left on an unfinished note? It wasn’t that I was expecting a secure resolution or anything, it just wasn’t what I was expecting.