\"One of the most brilliant satirical novels about life in East Berlin, in the shadow of the wall (quite literally)\". -Daniel Kehlmann, The New York Times Book Review

\"Compact, charming . . . [Jonathan] Franzen and [Jenny] Watson\'s translation keeps up an idiomatic swagger and ebullient good humor. Mr. Brussig\'s upbeat tale of life a few yards behind the Iron Curtain celebrates not the GDR regime but the sheer resilience that allows prisoners-of any system-to find inner freedom behind bars.\" -Boyd Tonkin, The Wall Street Journal

\"A charming comedy of mid-80s East Germany; funny and tender, [this book] damns totalitarianism through its warm focus on ordinary, riotous teenage life.\" -The Guardian

\"A delicious slice of life in 1980s East Berlin . . . Comedy, which comes through perfectly in the sharp translation, is essential to Brussig\'s project as he subverts the dread and paranoia of East German life by portraying a small world with love, tenderness, and humor hidden within it. There\'s a lot to love in this flipping of the Cold War script.\" -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

\"This novel . . . performs what the author calls \'the miracle of making peace with the past\' . . . Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson offer a stylish and elegant Sonnenallee.\" -Maren Meinhardt, The Times Literary Supplement

\"An airy, cheerful translation . . . funny [and] rueful.\"-Nikhil Krishnan, The Telegraph (UK)