The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Title: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Author: Helen Grant

Publication date: 2009

Book's setting: The 1990's

Random facts: The author is British. She moved to Germany after she married and writes her books there. In English. About Germans.

Plot summary: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is the account of Pia's childhood in Bad Münstereifel. When her Oma dies on the last Sunday of Advent the town takes it as a sign of bad things coming. When young Katharina disappears it becomes clear that something is amiss. Ten-year-old Pia and her out-cast friend Stefan must team up to solve the mystery of the disappearing children (much to Pia's mother's despair) in a closed off town filled with gossips, mysterious old men, and magical black cats.

Favorite aspects: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden wins a prize! The first book of 2011 to make me cry! Anyway, my favorite aspects were all the aspects. But what I liked best was how the story turned from a charming modern fairytale into a dark and deadly mystery. It was not the book you thought it was when you opened it. The ending was magnificent and scary and really sad. Poor Stefan.

Least favorite aspects: Okay, so I can't fault this book. Not really, not when it is the book that I have always wanted to write. Instead of finding faults with it, I shall point out what I would have done if it had truly been mine. I would have given Pia closure with Stefan. I might have even given them the hints of a romance. I would have actually shown Boris' black Mass. I might have hinted that Herr Schiller was actually supernatural.

Other works it reminded me of: Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson; Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones.

Sadie's merciless break-down:
If I didn't know better I'd say that I'd written this book. This is my novel, the novel inside I planned on writing one day. The book inside me is set in Germany and heartily embellished with German phrases. The main character is a little girl who loses a very close family member, and she copes with it very badly. In the novel I haven't written yet the little girl and best friend run around the German country side and befriend a mysterious old man and/or woman who has lots of cats. Everyone has so much coffee and whipped cream that the reader gets tired of seeing those words. It's dark and mysterious yet somehow charming. I've started this book a dozen times. I've never gotten very far.
The problem is... that book is The Vanishing of Katharina Linden. HELEN GRANT WROTE MY BOOK. I've never read anything in that screamed "THIS HAS BEEN MADE EXCLUSIVELY FOR ME" before in my life. It struck my soul and I'll never be able to think about it as anything but mine. I can't be mad that Helen Grant wrote The Vanishing of Katharina Linden. She did it better than I would have... I feel such a soul connection to this book that I think it's jumped into my top ten favorites list.
I don't know what to say. This has to be the freakiest thing that has ever happened to me. Helen Grant, what have you been doing snooping around my subconscious!?

Recommendation rate: If you aren't me you might not love it with the fierce passion I did. But it was still excellent, so try it!