Thank you Penguin books and NetGalley for a chance to read this ARC. Bea Settons writing is so immediate, visceral and enchanting that Germany itself is a brooding character on a street corner with a cigarette dangling from its mouth. Yes, the book is light on actual story but deep in atmosphere. Yes, Daphne is a pathological liar and you might not like her but I promise you this, you won't ever forget her. Bravo, Bea Setton.

Why are books about women being wrecks so popular lately? I do not enjoy reading page after page about the main characters bad decisions and low self-esteem with no redeeming arc. This book was tedious and unfulfilling. It made me sad and depressed for no reason. Great literature is meant to elevate our thinking, our emotions. We should come away from a reading experience having grown as an individual not thankful that it has finally ended.

Daphne, an Oxford graduate with no job, no occupational prospects, and wealthy parents, moves to Berlin, ostensibly to study German, although she tells people she is in a graduate program for philosophy. However, her emotional troubles travel with her, disrupting the life she hoped to build in a new country.

After having just read two very intensely wrenching novels, I was ready for something different. This was not it! This one was also intense. Some have called it witty or darkly funny. Perhaps it is my background as a mental health professional and I look at it differently from a lot of readers, but I did not find humor. Yet, it provided good insight into the pathology of mental disturbance. Tormented with doubt, self loathing, self delusion and an eating disorder, the new life she so wanted spins out of control. Yes, while some of her difficulties may be the result of the treatment of women in society, at their base is her emotional instability.

A debut novel that was well written, it was an engrossing, short read, with some insight into the psyche of a disturbed young woman as well as the obstacles women often have to face in today’s society. There may be a fine line between what one must do to adapt in a misogynist world and pathology, but Daphne, I feel, has crossed that line and is in need of help.

Thanks to #netgallely and #penquinbooks for the ARC.

daphne, a privileged white girl who wants to get a phd, moves to berlin. she does absolutely nothing but remark on how fast she learned german. she’s self absorbed, painfully wealthy, and spends most of her time on dating apps.

this novel just didn’t do it for me. i didn’t like daphne, the way antisemitism was casually mentioned, and the ignorant misuse of “bohemian.” it’s not a lifestyle, it refers to an oppressed czech minority group. this novel dragged and felt flat to me. i didn’t like any of the characters, and daphne was pretentious and beyond privileged.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

An unhinged, idle, bored, and privileged young woman with a penchant for lying decides to move to Berlin. What could possibly go wrong?

This was a wild and gripping read. Daphne is a captivating character - I didn’t trust her or like her but was somehow rooting for her nonetheless. I would read a series about Daphne making poor decisions and terrorizing the populations set in different European cities. The observations of the eight different types of men on dating sites alone makes this worth a read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

Thank you NetGalley, Penguin Books, and Bea Setton for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! This is a great addition to the recent trend of books surrounding people in their twenties that are often unreliable narrators. I would understand why someone may not like this book, but I enjoyed it and it kept me intrigued the entire time. The main character, Daphne, is an unreliable woman that’s trying to make sense of her life and just moved to Berlin. The depictions of Berlin and her German studies was really interesting and I enjoyed learning her thoughts. She’s consistently lies to herself and those around her and isn’t meant to be likable. Overall, I think people who like these kind of books (ex: My Year of Rest and Relaxation) will like this one, and I recommend it!

Having never heard of nor having read anything by Bea Setton before, I originally requested an arc of Berlin for 2 reasons: the GORGEOUS cover and the synopsis (our main character is a disaffected woman in her mid-20s who is frantically trying to make sense of her deteriorating life). I recently discovered that this is by far my favorite trope. I recently read The New Me by Halle Butler and absolutely loved it, and this book sounded just like it! Luckily it was JUST as good as The New Me, and was what I had hoped Otessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation would be. I already want to do a re-read of Berlin, and whoever did the cover art for this book, KEEP THEM! i know they say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but people still do (I'm absolutely guilty of this!) and this book POPS, really stands out from a lot of generic and bland looking covers these days, and a book that I will be happy to show in my personal library once this is available in hard copy. Absolute 5/5 stars. Cannot wait to see what Setton has in store for us next. This was just so so good!!

Daphne is new in Berlin, spending her days in German classes and her nights trying to reinvent herself—trying, and trying, and desperate to believe that she can outrun herself.

Daphne is both bitingly self-aware and a master of self-delusion. She knows who she wants to be, and sometimes she can stay there for a while—but she also knows, acutely and painfully, who she *is*. She's not written to be a likable character, exactly; if you find yourself relating to her, you'll likely be unnerved rather than pleased. She can only project health and stability for so long before the cracks start to show. But...it's also really clear that the author understands both Daphne and the sensation of being new in Berlin...and also the sensation of that newness starting to wear off. Hinterhöfe and figuring out recycling rules and Stolpersteine and asparagus pots and leaving glass bottles near trash cans for the homeless to collect; quark and paranoia about WhatsApp security and the difference in comfort between the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn; and on it goes—if you've ever lived in Berlin for even a few months, you'll recognize it. Oh, and the awkwardness of dating in Berlin, of course. I cannot tell you how weird it is to read so accurate and wry a description of being a new Ausländerin in Berlin.

I picked this up for the cover and the contemporary Berlin setting (it is surprisingly hard to find books in English that are set in Germany but that are *not* set during one war or another). The cover reminds me of Berlin street art—a paste-up, probably, something you'd find on a heavily graffitied and postered wall in an underpass. It's the sort of thing I'd take a picture of, pop on Instagram, and half-imagine that I was living the life of the girl in the picture, a life I'd assume to be more interesting and glamorous than my own. Daphne is perhaps the sort to do the same, minus Instagram, which I find both entertaining and disturbing.

I am not, thank sweet mercy, Daphne. I see more than I'd like of myself in her, but the similarities extend only so far. She's also not somebody I'd like to get to know. But this is basically the exact book I've been looking for since I first visited Berlin in 2016. Sometimes I loved it, sometimes I wanted to beat my head against the wall on Daphne's behalf, and I'm left feeling like this filled a weird little Berlin Ausländerin book–shaped hole in my soul.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.

Berlin is a character driven novel following 26 year old Daphne, a compulsive liar who has burned nearly every relationship she had in London before moving to Berlin for a fresh start. Living off her wealthy parents and her privilege, she fills her days with German lessons and online dating while attempting to balance a series of strange and unexpected events that send her spiraling.

Daphne should be an unlikeable protagonist, but for me her complexity was compelling. I found her anxieties, paranoia and online dating experiences highly relatable. Her deep analysis of other people, especially the section on patterns in men’s dating profiles, fascinated me. And the dry, quick witted humor is the exact kind of humor I love. Even though I appreciated how introspective she was, this in combination with her self-centeredness aided her ability to manipulate those closest to her. Still even with her many flaws, somehow I found myself rooting for her the entire time.

And the scenery! I have never been to Berlin, but the way Setton described the city has put it higher on my list of places to visit.

I thought this book had an interesting concept, but I just couldn’t get into it. The main character annoyed me, and I wasn’t invested in the story. This was a DNF for me.

Berlin by Bea Settonhad the potential to be a cool-girl book but fell flat for me. Also the writer should note that Bohemian refers to an entire marginalized people group and not a whimsical European wanderlust. Cringey.

Not entirely sure where this story was going. Was written in very long form and a little confusing to read at times. Characters didn’t really feel like they went anywhere most times.