City of Women.
The story is set in Berlin during WWII. The novel is called City of Women because, with all the able men gone to war, the city was primarily inhabited by women.
As you might expect from a novel set during WWII, it's quite gloomy. The main character, Sigrid, spends half of her time deep in flashbacks -- sometimes it is confusing if she is recalling something or experiencing it in real life. I had a real difficulty with this at first.
The subplot about the girl in the middle of her duty-year is pretty cool, especially when contrasted with Sigrid's constant depressing memories.
Amazon dubbed City of Women a "page-turning novel." I wouldn't call it that. The only page-turning I did that is worth noting was flipping a few pages back to figure out where did Egon go and why did she ditch him in the movie theater for the little troublemaker girl. Then I suspected that he was not really there physically but only in her mind and flipped a few more pages back to read their first encounter again. I can appreciate the technique -- the readers get a glimpse of Sigrid's mind when they perceive Egon to be a living breathing character (as far as fictional characters go). But scenes with Egon continue without any explanation, and if you're not careful enough you won't even realize Sigrid has slipped into another flashback.
If you are not at all into depressing stories, you might want to stay away from City of Women. However, if you are up for a journey with a lonesome character who lives in her past, I would recommend that you give this book a try.
And then come back here and tell me all about it.
