Dixie Noonan

There is so much here that is profound, but ultimately it was not a successful book for me for two reasons. First, the gender imbalance was never resolved. Second – and this is due in part to my own deficiencies in historical knowledge – I was unable to fully appreciate what I assume would be a compelling story of the decline of East Germany due to many events only being elliptically alluded to and not fully explained.

Beautiful insights, fascinating backdrop, but the story never quite all hangs together in the end.