68/2021. Wherever it is Summer by Tamara Bach, is a young adult novel about two teenage girls in Germany and What They Did On Their Holidays. I can't judge the original German story or writing because it has been let down by the English translation.

The two languages are close enough that near verbatim translation works fine for most conversation and basic description but as soon as a character has deeper thoughts, especially if expressing those thoughts involves more complex grammar and style, then the result ranges from clunky to indecipherable. There's a note at the end which sounds like the translator keen to tell us something: "She (Tamara Bach) speaks super English and was a huge help to the translator." Hmm.

I feel mean quoting one of less good bits but I want to give an example of the effect I described above and I'm doing the author the favour of assuming it read better than this in the original German:

"HOW IT STARTED maybe can't be said at all after the event, but when - that I do know, because I wondered, because it was just before the holidays."

So, although the nostalgia was fun and the characters of the two non-conforming teens were good company for a few hours, I wanted to like and enjoy this as a novel more than I did.

Warning for repeated discussion of suicide (this is not a spoiler as it happened before the book begins). ( )

I read this because I wanted an escapist lesbian love story and to have a break from things about death and dying. Which was, err, an error, because it is very explicit about loss and death and dying, and very light touch on the exact nature of their relationship. But I enjoyed it a lot. ( )

gut zum Lesen, sehr spezielle, etwas schnodrige, Slamähnliche Sprache
Ein 13 - und ein 17jähriges Mädchen mit grossen Problemen finden sich in diesem Sommer