Ewig Dein (Forever Yours) - Daniel Glattauer

I picked up Ewig Dein (English title: Forever Yours) after thoroughly enjoying Daniel Glattauer's email-romance Gut gegen Nordwind (English title: Love Virtually) and its sequel, Alle sieben Wellen (English title: Every Seventh Wave). I think I was hoping for a similar feel-good romance, one which would be easy to read in German and which, hopefully, might make me laugh out loud. It started off well and I was quickly transported to Vienna, where I got to know single protagonist Judith and her chance-supermarket-encounter-friend Hannes. Judith's slightly prickly (or perhaps just very independent) outer shell was quite hard to crack, however, and I didn't find myself warming to her as quickly as I had perhaps hoped. Hannes, who obviously fell for Judith from the start, was as suffocating as Judith was reticent, eager as she was unsure. This made for an interesting pair, but didn't evoke many feelings of surprise as the story started spiralling downhill. However, the plot did not go where I predicted it at all, which certainly served to maintain an element of surprise and I did find myself reading quite late into the night to find out just how this book could possibly end. The resolution was satisfying once I got there but the suspense was almost unbearable as I had to wait until the very end for the twist to unfold. Feel-good it was not. In fact, I found the story quite dark as it began dealing with psychological issues and the characters found themselves deep in a web of lies and fear, and Hannes' character made me feel really quite uncomfortable. Being honest, part of me found it refreshing to not read about a male protagonist designed to make female characters fall in love with him (it is possible that some might, but I very much didn't!) and I was intrigued by the plot, which was really quite different to most books I've read and, as I said, absolutely not what I was expecting. I am still not quite sure whether I enjoyed the feeling of discomfort that accompanied me throughout the story, the depth of which must, however, be attributed to the talent of Daniel Glattauer, whose writing captivated me and made me read on, finishing the book in just three days (not bad for me, especially not being in my native language!). I now have a new-found respect for Glattauer in terms of the versatility of his subject matter, and I would be very interested to read another of his books to see where that takes me. I would certainly recommend Ewig Dein (the English version, translated by Jamie Bulloch, was released in September and is available on Amazon) but be warned, this is far less straightforward than your usual love story and will linger in your thoughts long after you have turned the final page.