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This was a very pleasurable reading experience. I was absolutely captivated by this künstlerroman (an "artist's coming of age") and the setting of Berlin in the late aughts. Berlin is a city that is extremely dear to me, especially during that time period, and reading the story of the paradoxical protagonist Nila was fascinating. Nila is a 19 year old born in Germany to Afghan parents, a daughter who from a young age is forced to act as a German-speaking conduit for her parents' administrative tasks. She rebels against the notion of being a "good girl" in the eyes of her Afghan shame-based community while also wrestling with what her convictions are and what type of young woman and artist she wants to become.

Aria Aber examines the parallel societies that form in a creative and thriving German city when you attempt to blend together newcomers of different backgrounds hustling to make ends meet with the creative enclave that attracts so many students and young artists from across the globe to settle in Berlin. There are the "real" Germans, the progressive-minded and anticapitalist youth who flock there to create art and make music, the everyday folks who are trying to make ends meet or just keep the whole city running. Who does the city belong to? And who gets to belong? Nila suppresses her Afghan identity and tries to pass as something different; she lies to her friends about her identity and to her family about her drug & sex fueled partying. Along the way there is a web of party-going acquaintances and those that become her true friends - Doreen, Eli, and even Marlowe, the washed up older writer and f-boy that she becomes inexplicably entangled with. Each has a stronger sense of self and helps Nila to develop her own convictions and decide what kind of artistic life she wants to lead, and how it can satisfy what her parents hope for her while also being authentic to her desires. The depictions of the Bunker (ie Berghain) and the different immigrant enclaves of Berlin were powerful and astute. I absolutely loved this gem of a novel and can't wait to read it again! Many thanks to Random House and Hogarth Books, as well as NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.