A pretty grim tale of survival sex a need for human affection hard times everywhere. Not sure I got a whole lot out of this book, but it had its moments. ( )

My goodness, this was depressing. However, it was a very interesting look into the end of Weimar society from a point of view that would be suppressed during the Nazi regime, and it's a POV that still isn't very common into today's world. ( )

This book showed how progress and hope will lead to a worlds opportunities for every person despite backgrounds in play. Doris showed the world that the government may rule the world, but she rules her own life and controls her own destiny. Love finds its way, and internal growth is the most important growth that can be done. Overall, this story inspires and engages the audience to reflect on their own morals. ( )

Das kunstseidene Mädchen was Keun's second novel, published shortly before she was banned in Germany, and is still her best-known work. Like Gentlemen prefer blondes, it's in the form of a diary-style first-person account by a working-class young woman on the make. Doris has been taught by the cinema to expect more from life than invisibility as an office worker or the downtrodden existence of a working-class housewife, and she's got a pretty good idea of how to achieve the glamour she longs for (she's a brunette, so her role model is Colleen Moore, rather than Lorelei Lee). And she gets pretty close, several times. But this isn't the comic world of Anita Loos or Helen Fielding; Doris lives in the Germany of Berlin Alexanderplatz and Brecht's "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral", where unemployed people run a very real risk of starving to death and there's only the finest of lines separating a young woman on the make from prostitution and violent crime. We realise pretty soon that Doris is operating without a safety net. Whatever she does, she is always living on her nerves, and one wrong answer, one lie that is found out, will send her back - at best - to spending the night in a railway waiting-room.

This may be a very funny book, and it's one you could easily shelve under "chicklit", but it's also a book with tough messages about class and gender and what happens when illusions meet hard social realities. The view of the world it transmits is definitely not one that the Nazis would have been comfortable with. ( )

The history of this book is as interesting as the story itself. Keun wrote the book in 1932- it was a best seller but the Nazis blacklisted it in 1933. The author left Germany but eventually had to return and hide during the war. The story is written as a diary by a young woman who is amoral. poor and scrambling to get by- she has a brief career in a theatre, ends up stealing a coat and moving to Berlin. Doris exists by living with those who are as desperate as she is with very little in possessions or a job. Doris has been described as similar to the heroines in [Gentlemen Prefer Blondes]. However, the reality of Doris is one of brief encounters with men who she stays with and many spells of homelessness. Her only touching relationship is with a blind veteran of the First World War. Keun is a relevant voice of Germany between the wars. ( )