This was very short and pretty weird book. It’s mostly just the thoughts and ramblings of a girl that is frustrated and looking for her purpose in life. I find it pretty hard to describe the book because there’s not really a storyline, the main character is just reflecting on her current situation and her life & goals in general.

The book is definitely unique but overall I wasn’t blown away a bit.

I read this novella pretty spontaneously because I had just really been in a “chess mood” for the last couple of days.

Overall it was surprising how much of a page turner it actually was and it was a nice to read a Austrian book for a change.

Then again - from an emotional point of view this book hardly touched me so I’m giving it 3.5 stars I think. Worth a read but nothing exceptional in my opinion.

Really liked this one. I did take a break of a week or two while I read some different books but overall I like that I got to know the characters even more now and the story is really starting to pick up. I especially enjoyed some of the new friendships that were formed in this one.

I don’t have any big criticism when it comes to the pacing, I think it was definitely better than the first one.

Super curious about the next book because I heard that it’s one of the best in the series!

This book describes the experiences of a neurosurgeon during his time in medical school to residency and then in the second part how he dealt with his lung cancer diagnosis all the way up until his eventual death.

Loved the writing, obviously an incredibly heavy topic but the descriptions of his time as resident in the hospital and his motivations & reasons to become a doctor in the first place were very insightful. It is also remarkable how realistic and brave he stayed during his illness and the book also shows how the diagnosis changed the lives of not only him but also his wife.

I would absolutely recommend this book, I loved it.

My first book by Nabokov. My main thoughts: super pretty and flowery writing style - sometimes hard to read for me as a non native English speaker (then again neither was Nabokov).

My main problem with the book wasn’t even the obviously problematic/disturbing relationship between the two main characters but mostly that I just didn’t really care for the story at some point. I actually took a break of several months before finally finishing this book. There are definitely some quite fucked up scenes & situations in the book; I also didn’t think that this book is in any way romanticizing the relationship of the two characters. Humbert knows what he’s doing and that what he is doing isn’t right, it’s just the fact that he’s an unreliable narrator that might make this a bit less clear I guess.

Overall, I found it okay. Very pretty writing style, didn’t love the story & probably won’t reread it.