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Book #08 Der Markisenmann by Jan Weiler
Thu, Dec. 25th, 2025 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tinny
Der Markisenmann by Jan Weiler
i read book 7 before this but the draft is on my computer at home. i will post it once i'm home again.
For some reason, this book has not been translated to English. Considering it seems to be on the German school curriculum and is by far the author's most popular novel, that surprised me. Oh, well.
It's not like I liked it that much, so you're not missing out. ;)
Kim, 15 years old, and unhappy growing up with her mother, her stepdad and half-brother, has to spend the summer with her father, who she has never met before. Both of them carry a large guilt. Her father is trying to make up for his by selling unsellable old product door-to-door, and she starts helping him.
some thoughts, non-spoilery
* It took me three chapters to figure out that the main character is a girl - that was weird. I still don't quite trust the author to realistically write a 15-year-old girl, even after having read that book and being unable to put my finger on exactly why.
* From the very start, I had trouble identifying with the main character. I don't think I want to blame the author, I'm just not very interested in 15-year-old girls and their problems, even if those problems are relatable - although to be fair I don't remember having had similar problems, myself. (Except for the unrequited crushes, I do remember those. :D )
* I liked that there was never an answer for all the guilt. She feels guilty for setting her brother on fire - half accidentally, half not, she herself doesn't know - but there is no solution for it.
* Her father deals with his guilt in his own way, by setting himself an impossible task and doing penance for the rest of his life. I never quite managed to get how anone would do that. Yes, he ruined someone's life, yes he can never make up for that, and still. It just never clicked with me.
* Nothing much happens in this book. She gets to know the people who live around her father, falls in love with a neighbor boy but doesn't make anything of it, goes door to door with her father selling ugly canvas blinds (which is where the name of the book comes from). It's quite unremarkable, but she grows up a lot. That's the point.
* The parts about the father's (and mother's and stepdad's) East German past were quite good, but too short in my opinion, and it took a bit long for her to find out what exactly happened. They're probably the reason why the book is on the school curriculum.
* The insights into different people were quite poignant, but overall nothing really gripped me. Maybe it's because the author wrote the book for his daughter, i.e. it's basically a YA book, and I felt like there was nothing new for me in it.
3 stars - Not bad, just not my type of book.
1 - 5 stars - Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Final Architecture #1 [DW link]
2 - 2 stars - Miss Merkel: Mord auf dem Friedhof by David Safier Miss Merkel #2 [DW link]
3 - 4 stars - Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire Toby Daye #10 [DW link]
4 - 1 star - Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin [DW link]
5 - 5 stars - Murderbot Diaries 1-4 by Martha Wells [DW link]
6 - 4 stars - Die Neuerfindung der Diktatur/We Have Been Harmonized by Kai Strittmatter [DW link]
7 - tbd
8 - 3 stars - Der Markisenmann by Jan Weiler [DW link]
