Good Girl

by Aria Aber

An electric debut novel about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of nightclubs, bad romance, and self-discovery—a portrait of the artist as a young woman set in a Berlin that can't escape its history

A girl can get in almost anywhere, even if she can’t get out.

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist.

Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany—and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?

A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Queer, Audiobook, Coming Of Age, LGBT

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 14, 2025

Reviews

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

"a portrait of the artist as a young woman" <3

this is a grimy, twisty, frustrating book, full of mistakes and violence, thoughtlessness and party drugs, clubs at dawn and unclean apartments.

we follow nila as she reckons with all the burdens life can give: her mother's untimely death, her father's grief, the heavy expectations of her family, addiction chasing her, hate crimes in her neighborhood, a toxic and abusive relationship, the questioning of her sexuality, the desire to escape from her world, her identity, herself.

and the whole goddamn time she's either thinking about wanting to be a photographer or doing drugs.

you want to shake nila for a lot of this book and tell her to get her sh*t together, and then you wonder why you're doing that. what does it mean to be a good girl, anyway? and why shouldn't she be permitted to figure it out?

bottom line: angering and worthwhile.

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

[Michael Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

On second reading, my favorite book this year.

Congratulations to Aria Aber! Her debut novel, "Good Girl," was shortlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction.

You Belong to the “Others”

Coming of age is all about getting a grip on your identity, a tough challenge for anyone. Now picture yourself growing up in Berlin as the daughter of Afghan refugees. Nilab Haddadi tells people she is Greek. She tells people she is Egyptian. She is Italian or Israeli. She is Nila– not Nilab– that “b” is suspect. Her whole Afghan background in Berlin is denied. In a post-9/11 world of Islamophobia, one needs to put up one’s shields.

In many novels, the city, the sense of place, is a character. Nila’s Berlin is a disease. She is dying to break out; to reject the ghetto her family was trapped in. She throws herself headlong into the club scene, a mishmash of drugs, and “... I was ravished by a hunger to ruin my life.” * She finds Marlowe, a thirty-six-year-old American writer “with a square jaw and dimpled chin, the nose of an emperor,” * He not only tells her she is beautiful, he encourages her artistic aspirations in photography, and dazzles her with a different side of the city. This is what Nila latches onto, before she sees the true nature of their relationship and what they provide for one another.

Her parents came from an upper-middle class medical background in Kabul. Now her father alternates between driving taxis, flipping burgers at McDonalds, and drawing unemployment. In the aftermath of 9/11, her family had to fade into a background, lest their skin tone suggest a terrorist threat. Swastika graffiti from skinheads and neo-Nazis is commonplace and violent attacks could happen at any time. “You watch the news; everything you feared is true: They hate us. You belong, you understand, to the others.”

Identity. Nila is searching for her worth and direction, when she is coming from deep-seated self-loathing, shame, and paranoia. She wants to be the “Good Girl” -- “Whenever I harbored guilt, I prayed to the angels and God to cut out my heart and wash it too…. Please, I would pray, I want to be good, though in the mornings, the yearning for God, like every true thing I had ever felt, embarrassed me.” *

I just loved this book. With as much as Nila is put through, she shows an undeniable spirit to persevere. The author, Aria Aber, is a celebrated poet and this is her first novel– a surprising triumph.

Thank you to Random House and Hogarth Books, as well as NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #GoodGirl #NetGalley

[Farda Hus · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star

This was just a bunch of teenagers trying to be edgy, doing sex, doing drugs, and rambling about Kafka. Oh, don’t forget about the unemployed predator lurking in the background.

No, I don’t feel the depth.

No, I don’t feel any connection to the characters.

No, there’s no character development.

And yes, I hate this.

Thank you to the publisher and the author for providing me with this ARC. My opinion is my own.

[el · Rating 2 out of 5]

if i had to sum up good girl in one sentence, i'd liken it to the genre of tiktoks where skinny hot girls with dead eyes show you what combination of monochromatic fabrics got them into berlin's uber-exclusive berghain nightclub.

aria aber's fiction debut is one in a long line exactly like it: young woman down on her luck (socially, culturally, financially) discovers the answer to all her problems. the answer? dick from an emotionally unstable white man 10+ years her senior. like luster, good girl expresses an interest in engaging with the political. unlike luster, this engagement is a stopgap for the truer, more full-throated interests of the book: sex, partying, drugs, and art, but only if the art acts as fuel for the wannabe auteur male lead and his ilk.

the result is john green levels of non-energy:

"It's always like this, isn't it?" He gestured around.
"What exactly?"
"This." From the side of his face, I could see him smile.

(it's giving maybe okay will be our always.)

actually, it's all very john green—19-year-old narrator who takes herself way too seriously, practices her ahegao expressions in the mirror, surrounds herself with cigarettes and torn stockings—if john green had an unexpressed interest in vampires and read one too many novels on wattpad. good girl is exactly as erotic as 1D fanfiction.

here are some of my favorite moments where aber is unable to shake her spiritually and aspirationally Self-Published Urban Romantasy Writer register:

— "I noticed his smell before I saw him." (okay, edward cullen...?)
— "Of course, he hadn't noticed me. He was a prince who moved through rooms as if they belonged to him, surrounded by a large group of friends, among them his blond girlfriend, who in my memory always wore a Sonic Youth shirt." (marlowe is NOT kaz brekker, bro, he is a failed 36-year-old novelist with skid mark boxers and chronic cheating tendencies. pls stop this)
— "'You shouldn't be at a party like that. It's not good for you.' [...] 'Shut up.' I wanted to die."
— "No. [...] I decide when I want to fuck you." (christian grey over here 🙄🙄)
— "Back in the living room, he was dancing in slow motion to a song he said was by Cream." (do NOT let harry styles or paul mescal near the movie adaptation this is eventually gonna get)
— "'Oh, bunny.' He touched my hair. 'You say this because the world hasn't broken you yet. But it will, trust me.'" (and do NOT let colleen hoover fans know this book exists or they're gonna start running to target en masse)
— "And there he was again: Marlowe smiling deviously at me in the silver light."
— "'For a long time, I thought I was monstrous.' He paused to light another cigarette. 'Like I was incapable of true feeling, of love.'"
— "'God, what are you doing to me? You confuse me. I wanted to protect you.' 'I don't want to be protected,' I sneered." (very twilight, very 50 shades of grey, very 2010-era wattpad werewolf romance with francisco lachowski on the cover, very CW teen drama script)
— "'You know that I'm ruining you, right? Even if I am trying not to.' 'You're not ruining me.' 'Yes, I am.' He was laughing, but there was earnestness on his face, and then he entered me again, half-hard."
— "I recalled what Anna had said about him, that he was a creature of darkness." (YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS.......THIS WRITER IS A STEGNER FELLOW AND THIS IS HER PROSE.)
— "He tasted of ash and breath mints, and his skin was always cold. Sometimes he told me to shut up and pressed one hand against my mouth, the other lazily circling my nipple through my dress." (okay, damon from the vampire diaries)
— "I felt newly shy around him. He, wearing his leather jacket, leaning against a wall or his foot pressed on a chair, looked amused. In his gaze I felt totally seen and also invisible [...]. Images of him smirking or touching another girl's hair returned to me. I don't want him, I kept saying to myself: I don't want him."
— "'Once, Doreen showed me this tiny heart-shaped stone her sister had given her, and when she told me the story, I was fighting hard not to throw it out the window.'"

marlowe: does nothing
nila, unprompted: He glinted sleekly under the pulsing strobe lights and moved darkly through the underbelly of the club, ensnaring me with the chill of his icy gaze. My nipples grew to three times their normal size. From the unlit cigarette in his mouth, I could tell he would later object to reciprocating oral sex. I watched him reach down to squeeze his prominent groin. As if on cue, a bag of cocaine landed at our feet.

LIKE. ARIA ABER. LOOK AT ME. OPEN AO3 RIGHT NOW. MAKE AN ACCOUNT. GO LET OFF SOME STEAM. THEN COME BACK TO YOUR WORD DOCUMENT WHEN YOU FEEL MORE NORMAL.

namwali serpell distills this brand of repressed, horny navel-gazing in her essay "hit me, baby":

A woman in her twenties drifts into a relationship with an older man. [...] she has artistic aspirations. She is Marxist-ish: she notices class, complains of capitalism, spouts bits of theory. She is queer-ish: she has fantasized about and/or slept with and/or dated women. The older man is generally wealthy, high-powered, charismatic, attractive, good in bed, and—somewhat anachronistically—always white. This is the master.

aber is a poet first and foremost, and one whose debut collection i've even rated positively. something you'll find in poet-pivoting-to-fiction debuts, though, is a struggle to conceptualize continuity through characters and their history. the cast here is whittled down to bare essentials, and critical moments in the narrative—like doreen and nila becoming "curiously close," or nila lying about her ethnicity—are delivered through time-lapse summarization. the instincts of the poet's former life reign supreme; the tendency here is lists, collages, images, figurative language, swaths of description about german architecture (some even very beautiful!). the instincts are NOT chronology, character writing, plot, or dialogue.

(and, in spite of her poetic ability, we still sometimes get uniquely terrible sentences from aber: "I craved to chew on wet soil, or suck someone's dick, or maybe dance too," or, "He intently observed Lina, who exuded fundamental ennui in her white dress." this is the opposite of stephanie wambugu's lonely crowds, where nothing at all is going on at the level of the sentence. here, too much is going on, please god, scale it back.)

in fiction, a poet is immediately bared: the strange and flickering tongue relied on in one medium proves inadequate in the other. this is because poetry alone cannot sustain long-form narrative. fiction is meatier (and, yes, by consequence messier). it requires anchors, tension, logic, a strong temporal flow.

poetry is forgiving in places that fiction is not. in verse, you can get away with illogic, suggestion, gaps, euphemisms, redactions/erasure, etc. in fiction, we see poets wrestle for control of a new set of tools, and one they barely understand beyond the lure of a publishing advance larger than $10,000.

in good girl, there's nothing at all to blunt the awareness that pretty scaffolding is too insubstantial to hold the entire house up. our narrator nila is a 19-year-old girl who describes herself as emanating "something darker, something uglier," because she likes doing speed and finds herself surrounded by gaggles of alt white people. she calls beauty a "tragic virtue often abused," yet a latent obsession with physical attractiveness and men colors the interiority of aber's novel. this latency feels, at times, totally unconscious on the part of aber.

this is an all-too familiar phenomenon in literary fiction and publishing broadly. our female narrator judges and scorns the women around her for acting man-hungry, yet she herself exhibits all the symptoms (and more) she detests in women who threaten her status as Most Desirable. the men in good girl are allowed full portraits and ample room to flex their pseudo-intellectual backgrounds, but their female counterparts are viewed with cynicism and disdain for doing the same, exist as extensions of their love interests, and only serve the plot insofar as jealousy and love triangles allow them to. in essence, the women of the novel are filtered to us through their infatuation with men (and who can blame them, when aber writes her male characters with so much more depth!)....

A girl was chatting with the professor in the front, leaning over his desk. She chuckled. He had a big beer belly and round, frameless glasses. I never understood this eagerness to woo authority figures. Our professors were never the hot young people that students in movies had affairs with. Instead, they smelled of salami and old dust and possessed the aura of an orthopedic shoe—[...] nothing you wanted to flirt with.

....this is so funny to me coming from the teenager suffering a psychosexual obsession with the washed up 36-year-old failson who unironically calls himself monstrous. and again we see the theme of physical beauty cropping up: nila cannot conceive of a world where someone she considers ugly is treated as desirable. marlowe, with his leather jackets and slicked back hair, is another story.

doreen, marlowe's former manic pixie dream girl, is written with such a heavy hand, she feels almost satirical. she's screechy, pimpled, hair-twirling, envious of the 19-year-old fucking her boyfriend. and yet, the real boy-crazy fiend has been narrating the book all along: "My eyes darted toward Marlowe. My awareness of his body petrified me. I could barely focus on Doreen's words."

who here does aber want us to see as obsessed and who does she want us to see as sympathetic...?

in physical descriptions of doreen, this gender bias becomes glaring:

Her blond bob was sleekly combed to the side, revealing a shiny forehead with one dried-out pimple, caked over with powder. // The pallid décolletage burst through the black chiffon of her dress. Her mascara was long and spindly, like in Man Ray's Glass Tears. // She smiled, baring her perfect fangs, though there was a smudge of lipstick on one of her incisors. // Doreen's mouth was agape, a thread of saliva between her lips, the eyes blank... // There was loose glitter on her eyelids, some of which had become dislodged on her cheek. She looked beautiful [...] The only fault I found was her wide mouth, her equine teeth.

it's important that we always end an observation of doreen's beauty/femininity with the reminder that it's ultimately cheap, imperfect, and therefore embarrassing (unlike the GRIT and AUTHENTICITY of nila, whose curls effortlessly escape her ponytail!).

nila's perception renders the women attached to her love interest dumb, desperate, and obsessed, as if her own strain of desire is coolly nonchalant (hint: it's not): "His effect on Doreen too was thick and urgent. She couldn't focus, giggling more than usual, pulling at his sleeve."

this strange misogynistic subtext bleeds into the narrative even in scenes where marlowe is conspicuously absent:

Then [Doreen] began talking about Yugoslavia and the communist wars, very loudly, often looking over at Eli, who smiled at her. [...] She ignored my questions, absorbed by the import of her intellectual performance.

here, doreen is performative and exclusionary, desperate to cling to any man she's alone in a room with. but when marlowe suddenly starts monologuing about schiele/velásquez/mozart/brecht/fellini/deleuze as a form of passive foreplay for his sexual relationship with a 19-year-old, it's not performative or vapid because we aren't socialized to perceive intellectual performance in men as transactional, counterfeit, or manipulative the way we are with women. their interests are authentic and studied!

everyone, remember, when women talk about history and politics, it isn't out of any genuine investment in learning—it is always because they want the only man in the room to stare at their tits!

i don't mean to suggest that women cannot be performative or man-hungry. i mean that the internal logic of good girl's social fabric positions women who are attached to marlowe as inherently self-serving, greedy, jealous harpies whose beauty is effortful and therefore deceptive. meanwhile, the men in the novel are swaggering, cerebral, avant-garde, quirky, and lecherous, but that's fine, because they're masculine and therefore beautiful. even after a secondary male character recounts a threesome anecdote, nila is "stunned by [his] ample capacity for feeling." misogyny is a hell of a drug!

...when the men aren't "beautiful"? well...

I can't say why, but when [my uncle] waved at me, it was as if I were exposed to something indecent, as if a naked person ran down the street or a building was set on fire. A tear in the fabric of reality occurred, seeing Rashid there with his bad back and his creepy, wrinkly face.

and, much later: "The only uncle I liked, Darius, was my father's eldest brother. He was a tall man with sculpted features..."

are we seeing the pattern? nila has a strange tendency to valorize beauty and demonize anyone who doesn't physically pass muster, whether because they're fat, wrinkled, disabled, or simply women. seriously, the greatest crime you can commit in the world of good girl is acne. it doesn't matter if you cover it with makeup. the fact of its existence means you deserve to be taken out back and shot: "She was wearing these hideous rhinestone-studded sunglasses, a pimple shining on her forehead."

and of course, we also have to check off one last box in our contemporary litfic list: brief, offhand lesbian desire to undo or "complicate" any jealousy/misogyny, described as "tender and soft and simple." it's par for the course in this subgenre. the lone, single-use, quintessential Queer™ interlude to hint to readers that cisheteropatriarchy doesn't have a total stranglehold on the narrative or our fashionable protagonist:

...there was Felix, of course, who made me read Adorno and only rarely wanted to have sex, and men in the back seats of cars and in dingy, sticky club toilets, and the girl with incredible breasts who shared her humid sheets and orange shampoo with me one summer...

with a sensory detail positioned as singular/unique to set the sexual relationship apart from its straight counterparts, because Men Don't Use Scented Shampoo Or Smell Fruity (the only real reason to have throwaway sex with a woman ofc is to fill the gaps where Valorized Male Lead falls short).

aber loves a "[Pronoun] smells like [noun] and [noun]" descriptor and employs the same formula for nila, who, according to marlowe, "smells like lilies and...garlic sauce," and for doreen, who smells "of sourdough bread and rosewater."

women with grit! women who are also """ugly"""! (whatever the hell that means)

.......are we bored of this formula yet? please tell me we're bored so we can move on from mediocre debuts that try and fail to replicate luster's third act. i'm tired.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025
At first, Aber's apparently autofictional debut seems to be a tale as old as time: Hedonistic Berlin party girl takes too much speed at legendary techno club Berghain, sleeps with toxic bois and seeks meaning, the end. If German literature is your home turf, this storyline is so overdone, it only works as parody - but Aber gives it a twist that keeps up the intrigue: Her narrator, 19-year-old Nila, was born to Afghan parents, and she drifts through to the once divided city shortly after 9/11, in deep grief after losing her mother. In an environment still unsettled by post-unification right-wing violence (in Germany called the baseball bar years) and the terror brought about by what we now know as the National Socialist Underground, she feels pressured by her father's expectations to be the title-giving good Afghan girl, carrying the weight of her parents' destiny as refugees - former doctors, they now hardly get by in the infamous brutalist skyscrapers of Gropiusstadt (btw also where Christiane V. Felscherinow grew up).

Nila flees into Berlin nightlife (okay, that's really a cliche) and starts a relationship with a toxic boi (sure), but how Aber renders this dynamic is great. From the start, older American writer Marlowe aims to dominate Nila, and the naive young woman falls for his manipulative antics, but there also seems to be a wish inside the grieving daughter to be physically hurt, to be punished and demeaned for what is perceived as her flaws - perceived by the world, perceived by herself. And that's where the text is psychologically interesting: Nila battles all these issues, and she seeks relief in forms of self-destruction she believes she deserves. Her dream is to become an artist though, and Aber encourages readers to root for this volatile narrator who, as we know, deserves much better.

Sure, there are too many repetitive party scenes, and Aber's perspective is also slightly off, as we are supposed to believe that the story is told by an older Nila looking back - if that's the case, there are layers of reflection lacking, the disconnect between youthful naivete and later wisdom is not played out accordingly. Still, Nila's complexity is so fascinating, the contradictory impulses are shown so convincingly, that this debut is just a pleasure to read.

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nila was brought up to believe she had to be “a dokhtare khub, a good girl, in order not to turn into a dokhtare kharab, a broken, bad, ruined, girl.” But at 18, starting college while still reeling from her mother’s recent death, Nila questioned everything about herself: her needs, her wants, and above all her cultural heritage. Her Afghan-German family live in Berlin, for Nila that translated into a flat in a run-down Lipschitzallee high-rise, an area routinely associated with deprivation and the socially marginal. Nila’s liberal, activist parents fled Afghanistan before she was born, hoping to live more freely in Germany. But events like the infamous Rostock riots, that took place when Nila was still learning to walk, soon made it clear this new country presented new and menacing challenges.

Aria Aber’s vivid, visceral, semi-autobiographical novel centres on Nila, a decade later, reflecting on her 18-year self and the choices she made. Choices she now recognises as rooted in grief and self-loathing. Nila’s depiction of herself resembles the protagonists found in contemporary “sad girl lit”. But unlike those – almost always - white girls mired in generalised, existential crises, Nila’s confusion is rooted in conflicted feelings about her identity and struggles with an everyday racism so pervasive it’s become internalised. Aber’s narrative zooms in on Nila’s day-to-day: drugs, clubs, and an increasingly-abusive relationship with older, washed-up American writer Marlowe. But, throughout, Aber traces connections between Nila’s personal dilemmas, her self-destructive brand of double consciousness, and Germany’s broader political climate.

Aber’s Germany’s fractured, fragmented, rife with social inequality. A space peopled by clashing subcultures from Nila’s hedonistic friends to the countercultural groups who flock to the Fusion Festival, to the neo-Nazis and terrorists like the National Socialist Underground – whose racist killing sprees were largely unacknowledged as such for years. Aber’s Berlin is a claustrophobic place whose architecture conveys its chequered past – buildings and their layout have a profound impact on Nila’s state of mind.

As you might expect from someone who’s primarily a poet, Aber’s writing is well-crafted, her scenes richly imagined and keenly observed. Nila’s obsession with literature and photography that’s exclusively embedded in white, Western canonical traditions is a particularly interesting means of conveying Nila’s internal conflict, her position as someone who’s always just outside the frame - even when she features in her own and in Marlowe’s “art” she’s more object than subject. It’s a striking piece, filled with arresting images and numerous excellent scenes and passages. But, like so many debut novels, it’s overpacked, sometimes points are hammered home so repetitively they lose their force. It has a languid intensity I frequently found disarming but sometimes it was just too languid even for me – it could easily withstand extensive trimming. But, for readers who can overlook its flaws I think it’s more than worth investing the time.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Bloomsbury Circus for an ARC

Rating: 3.5

[Sunny Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

In conclusion: white people have a sickness in their souls

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

What it means to be good — or not — is the infected wound at the center of Aria Aber’s debut novel, “Good Girl.” The narrator is a forlorn young woman named Nila Haddadi, and the story she tells sounds like a howl of despair transposed into the key of poetic retrospection. Indeed, the fact that this harrowing story recalls events from more than a decade ago provides the only reassurance that the narrator survived her teens.

Nila’s Afghan mother gave birth to her in Berlin during a burst of international optimism when the wall fell. But her neighborhood had already become a canker of xenophobia in the reunified city. “I was born inside its ghetto-heart,” Nila says, “as a small, wide-eyed rat.” She quickly develops a sense of herself as a mote buffeted about by disastrous geopolitics — particularly Russian and American hubris in Afghanistan, the “graveyard of empires.”

“Good Girl” is never overtly political, but the fabric of this story constantly catches on the barbed wire of Europe’s isolationism. Though set several years ago, the inhospitable culture that Aber describes anticipates the success this past fall of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing party advocating for the mass deportation of immigrants. And of course, such animus powers the incoming U.S. administration, too. Just last month, Trump trumpeter Elon Musk told his 210 million followers on X, “Only the AfD can save Germany.” American readers willing to hear the mingled frustration and despondency of an alienated generation will find in “Good Girl” a heartbreaking lament.

Aber’s writing thrums with the knowledge of lived experience: Like her protagonist, she was born in Germany, and her parents were also immigrants from Afghanistan. The neo-Nazi acts of intimidation and terror that she includes in “Good Girl” are, sadly, elements of recent history, not fiction....

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[CarolG · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is about Nila (true name Nilab), the nineteen-year-old daughter of Afghan immigrants living in Germany, and her year of nightclubs, bad romance, and self-discovery.

Nila felt a lot of shame for the way she lived, in a shabby apartment with her widowed father. She didn't tell anyone that she was Afghan and seemed to change her background story depending on who she was trying to impress. For about the first third of this book I was quite immersed in Nila's exploits and was very worried about her involvement with Marlowe, an older American author who seems intent on keeping Nila on the hook whilst exerting control over her. She and her mates (I hesitate to call them friends) popped pills non-stop and didn't sleep for what seemed like days but then they'd carry on a fairly lucid conversation about Kafka. There's much repetition of clubbing, drinking and drugging. By the end I concluded that I wasn't really the right reader for this book and I'm not embarrassed to admit I didn't understand a lot of it. To me this lands somewhere between 'it was ok' and 'it was good' but it's well written so I rounded to 3 stars.

I feel the need for a shower after finishing this book!

TW: Drug use, domestic abuse, racism

My thanks to Random House & Hogarth Books, via Netgalley, for inviting me to read an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Publication Date: January 14, 2025

[Celine · Rating 5 out of 5]

✨“But of course there could be no holy place on earth; our life here was purgatorial and meaningless, and God had forgotten about us.”

At the heart of this novel is grief. Grief and shame, and a desperate need to outrun both of those things. The result is a gritty and glittery smashup of a book, yanking the reader through the pages, as if grabbing onto their hand and tugging them through a crowded club along with the narrator.

It’s a coming-of-age novel about Nila, a young Afghan woman, living in Berlin and existing in the dark underbelly of the club-scene. When she meets a much older man, an American writer named Marlowe, she assess (out loud, to him) that he is going to change her life.

In many ways he does, though in that way where, when you are young and trust the wrong people, that pain can calcify in you, inspiring you to create and seek out the parts of yourself which supersede the pain.

It’s a book about seeking and hiding, loving and losing, and it’s the rawest thing I’ve read, recently.

I’m blown away by this one, truly.

[Yasemin Smallens · Rating 2 out of 5]

(1.5/5). I would’ve loved to like this book but sadly the writing felt like poor YA, and I felt there to be endless, superfluous descriptions that not only failed to serve the plot but at times made no sense. The “pick me girl” vibe of the narrator was frustrating. The character development felt rushed and dissatisfying at the end. The revelations seemed surface level.

To zoom out, I’m disappointed that publishers keep bookshelves stocked with narratives that draw such a distinct and regressive lines between the west and the east, her “traditional” “violent” afghan family (her words not mine), and the “modern” world of Berlin. A more thoughtful narrator would weave the threads of the intimate partner violence she experienced with Marlowe, her white partner, and the violence she was exposed to at home demonstrating that violence is sadly a human, not cultural or even individual phenomena. Instead the author chose to let these two narratives of violence hang in the air with no critical interrogation, thoroughly missing the opportunity to challenge these dichotomies of east/west which beget only more violence.

While I am sympathetic that some people experience cultural difference in such stark ways, and I believe this is true of the narrator, I am disappointed that these seem to be the only narratives which are published in the mainstream. As a Turkish-American, I am saddened to see such one dimensional narratives of the Muslim world again and again. It reminded me of the disappointment and frustration I felt after reading Hijab Butch Blues. I know it is unfair to place the higher expectations on non-western writers than western ones, it just would’ve felt really nice to like this book.

[leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautifully written and incisive. aber manages to skirt the stereotypical trap of ‘young woman attempts to decipher her identity through a relationship with a toxic older man’ book by placing such a focus on nila’s exploration of immigrant identity, womanhood, desire, inherited shame, grief, and coming of age in a berlin still reeling from the post-war and post-9/11 aftershocks. before reading this i saw a lot of people describe it as a book about drugs, partying, and sex - but i believe that does the book a disservice.

the sudden focus on geopolitics towards the end does feel a little heavy-handed, but not completely unexpected as those themes form the undercurrent of nila’s experiences and the novel. nila has such a sharp, intelligent voice, which in many ways reminded me of selin from elif batuman’s ‘the idiot’. i would’ve happily read more pages of her reflections and musings, but for a coming of age story, the book ends at the ideal point.

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

For years, Nila has been telling those who ask that her family is Greek—or Italian, or French; it doesn't really matter as long as she doesn't tell the truth. Born and raised in Berlin, she's used to the daily grind of urban poverty, used to racist micro- and macroaggressions, used to seeing her uncles driving taxis throughout the city, and used to their disappointment when they see her out and about and being something other than a rule-abiding daughter.

What did I feel when i saw her in the afternoon light setting over the gray cityscape? Love, yes, love. And then, sure as a clock: I felt shame. (loc. 2902*)

By the time Good Girl opens, Nila has given up on being that good girl; she's drifting through university and working under the table to get around the income limitations imposed by her father's benefits, but mostly she's spending her time in a drug-fuelled haze in various clubs. And so she meets Marlowe, a washed-up writer whose thrall extends far beyond his talent.

I'm eternally curious about books set in contemporary Germany (it's so much easier, at least in English, to find books set during WWII), and this fits the bill handily. I don't know how much, if any, reflects Aber's own experience growing up in Germany, but this is a Berlin of artists living in Altbau buildings, and clubs where anything goes, and kebab shops and graffiti and politicians looking the other way when violence hits immigrant communities.

Nila is a tricky one. So much of the book is her seeing the thing that she should do, or at least the thing that might hurt less, and then turning the other way. So much of the book is another club and another way to get high; so much of the book is leaning into those things and people that hurt and hurt and hurt some more. There was a point, midway through, where I thought something would change and she would be able to move on, but instead it is back to drugs and clubs and bruises.

There is a substantial reader population for whom this will work very, very well—the grittiness and the grime and Nila's general lost-ness for much of the book. I found it to be relatively slow going, though, partly I think because of the intentional repetitiveness to the club scenes (the club-scene scenes, if you will). I was ready for a catalyst well before Nila was. The writing is there, though, so even if the plot wasn't entirely for me, I'd read more from Aber in the future.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

[Zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

it took us a second but we got there in the end

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite good actually. At first it just seemed to be a novel about a partying girl going to raves and popping pills all the time, but it is really a story about shame of one’s origins, and a search for identity, belonging, and freedom. Well done and I was very much invested in this.
Thank you Bloomsbury and Netgalley UK for the ARC.

[idiomatic]

dnf. can't stand being bored, REALLY can't stand being bored by a party girl novel. nice on a prose level—and i do mean Nice, rather than good; it offers some unfussily pretty descriptions, the author is a poet (i've read and liked her poems!), it is completely formally uninteresting. what is the point of being a poet writing a novel about a year where you did a lot of drugs if you're not going to push on form at all. i guess the point is that the drugs are set dressing in the character's personality, and youth/drugs/diaspora/sex/specifically the pompous sexual mentorship from an older man are props in the big empty space where a perspective—author's or (ideally and) character's—is supposed to go.

let's think about some of the perhaps unfair high-water marks of the hot-girl-doing-nothing genre. the protagonist here doesn't have the interior complexity of elif batuman's selin, whose every thought is a surprising adventure even when she's sitting in a room. the author doesn't have the formal gift of sally rooney, generational queen of college-agers having coming-of-age sex and the readers that want to inhabit them, whose individual sentences have such a clear voice you can hear the distinctions of her characters' accents even if you aren't really up on irish regionalisms. and TRULY unfair to give it the eve babitz cover composition—i'm trying not to hold that against the author, who presumably didn't write the book imagining the cover it would one day get. but if selin (the fictional character) is a watsonian example of what's missing and sally rooney (the author) is a doylistic one, eve is both: a writer of immensely inventive turns of phrase and a hugely charismatic party girl writing from interesting lived experience. honestly mean to put them side by side.

the closest comparison is happy hour, a book that's three stars because no one in its creation was paying it particular attention, but which nonetheless has become a hit because of its gossipy vivacity. this is not alive in the same way. it's not even that it's self-impressed, even though it is in the way that all autofiction is (it feels like a very pre-dated kind of autofiction, like, very talked to death on twitter in 2021). it's... credulous about the setup of young woman fucking older man and Learning From the experience of his disinterest. it's incurious. it's formally boring. it's meant to be carried in purses and held next to a drink at bars in certain neighborhoods in certain cities to signal certain things about the media class of the reader. it is a prop. i wish it was a book.

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

First quarter of this is very good, especially the protagonist’s tension with her love interest, and the detailed family history of immigration from Afghanistan to Germany.

The rest of the book is repetitive in the points it clearly wants to make, filled with a bunch of “poetry” that felt clunky instead of purposeful, and felt quite aimless without enough resolution to have been worth the overdone stereotypes and million lines of cocaine.

[LLJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Good Girl" is a crushing and gritty debut by Aria Aber (an author who has previously published award-winning poetry). This is definitely a coming-of-age story but, even more importantly, it is a "coming of" identity journey for the young protagonist, Nilab. Nila is an only child, born in Berlin, Germany to Afghan parents, and is repeatedly "bringing shame" to her parents/family who have been offering her all the opportunities possible to "succeed" and live a better collective life than they have had. Her mother and father were both educated and professionally employed in their home country of Afghanistan when they relocated to Berlin (where both were underemployed and struggled financially). I will not go into the intricacies of the plot but will say it's extremely well written and executed--Nila loses her mother at a young age and is left with a father and a few extended family members who are at a loss for what to "do" with young Nila. She has already been given an opportunity to study at an expensive boarding school but does seem to be using these advantages to better herself.

Nila finds life in the "Bunker" - a techno club that is riddled with drugs and raves and a crowd she falls into effortlessly. There she takes up a relationship with an older, flighty (and a bit washed-up) American writer - Marlowe - who is full of his own issues and frailties. But Nila becomes a person on whom he can both rely (for devotion and admiration) and mold/control. I can't say enough about the gorgeous writing here -- the well-imagined events and situations, the emotional undertones -- Aber is a wonderful writer and I was present in the situations Nila involved herself in as a result. This book feels real and fully lived.

I was rooting for Nila throughout the book, knowing that she is a very talented and savvy young woman who is filled with shame (about her cultural identity, her gender, the expectations thrust upon her, and her low sense of self-worth). She has an eye and passion for photography and we see that it is very much a way for her to "control" her life and make sense of the things around her. I think this book is coming out (mid-Jan 2024) at a fraught and unsettled time in our world -- in every way -- and the racism and ugliness depicted in this story are reflective of the world at large: in America and Europe and around the planet. I hope EVERYONE preorders and reads this gorgeous and heartbreaking novel and I felt lifted at the conclusion. I love this writer and cannot wait to read more from her. THANK YOU to #NetGalley and #Hogarth for the opportunity to read and review Good Girl. I'm looking forward to quoting some lines and passages on social media after the pub date on 1/14/2025.

[cass krug · Rating 3 out of 5]

good girl follows 19 year old nila, who is of afghan heritage and living in berlin. her relationship with her family becomes especially splintered after the death of her mother, and she falls in with berlin’s nightlife crowd. the group centers around the older writer marlowe, who nila gets involved with. we see nila grapple with the shame she has surrounding her identity, the sense of displacement she feels among her friends, and how that shame drags her even farther away from her family.

i really enjoyed aber’s writing style - her multilingual background and origin as a poet made for some really interesting turns of phrase. nila’s narrative voice was engaging, and i was rooting for her the entire time. her struggles felt nuanced and realistic. i also thought aber did a great job of evoking a sense of time and place with her descriptions of the 2000s berlin club scene.

i was compelled by the progression of nila and marlowe’s relationship during the pivotal events that took place throughout the novel, but the toxic relationship and constant partying storylines started to grate on me towards the end of the book. i think i’m realizing that toxic relationships aren’t my favorite topic to read about, so that comes down to personal preference. i saw some similarities to if only by vigdis hjorth, with the cyclical nature of nila and marlowe’s benders and fights, and would’ve loved to see some of that repetition tightened up a bit.

overall an enjoyable debut, 3.5 ⭐️ thank you to hogarth for sending me a copy of this book, and happy pub day!! 💗

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5 ALC gifted by prhaudio

This book is best described as contradictory, which also sums up my conflicting feelings about it. On the one hand, the writing is aesthetically pleasing. While I appreciate the writing style, the overwritten sentences overshadows the message, making the book read like an MFA project at times

The heavy use of stereotypes, especially describing Muslim culture, and one’s self-hatred of their heritage is another reason I have complex feelings for this book. I can see this coming of age story making younger readers feel less alone about their identity when they’re trying to fit into whiteness. However, the heavy emphasis of drug and sex makes this a book that isn’t fit for younger audiences. So I just have a hard time imagining a readership that will benefit from reading this book. Like one is either old enough that hopefully they’ve overcome these identity crises, or not old enough to read about doing drugs and skipping school 😅

There’s a lot of internal racism and grooming that frankly was tough to read and I thought about dnfing halfway. The last 10% attempts to resolve some of these things, but it was just a long walk to a resolution that didn’t really pay off imo

I have a feeling this book isn’t written with BIPOC readers in mind

[Isa · Rating 3 out of 5]

i want to give this a 2.5 but anyway i am so fucking sick of millenial ennui novels. there is something akin to insight here but i am just not seeing it, i guess .

[Alexander Carmele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vom eigenen Chaos ersticktes Erzählen, das keine Erlösung findet.

Inhalt: 1/5 Sterne (hedonistische Selbstkasteiung)
Form: 3/5 Sterne (poetische, teils gewollte Sprache)
Erzählstimme: 3/5 Sterne (zu wenig reflektiertes Ich)
Komposition: 1/5 Sterne (ziemlich dissoziativ)
Leseerlebnis: 2/5 Sterne (ratloses Mäandern)

Gewalt innerhalb verbindlicher sozialer Kontexte, also in Freundschaften, innerhalb der Familie, in Liebesbeziehungen, hinterlässt ein Vakuum, das nicht selten traumatisch befüllt, phantasmagorisch besetzt wird. Es kommt dem Unheimlich-Grässlichen einer Edgar Allan Poe Welt oder eines H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu real-existierend am nächsten. Claudia Schumacher schreibt darüber in Liebe ist gewaltig , Deniz Ohde in Ich stelle mich schlafend oder Terézia Mora in Muna . Ein anderes Beispiel wäre noch Leïla Slimani in Das Land der Anderen mit der religiösen Ost-West-Thematik unterlegt, die in den anderen Romanen fehlt. Aria Aber nimmt dieses Thema in Good Girl auf. Nilab, eine 19jährige Afghanin, treibt ziellos durchs nächtliche Berlin, auf der Suche nach Verbindlichkeit, und landet in den Armen eines mittellosen, 36jährigen, unerfolgreichen US-amerikanischen Schriftsteller namens Marlowe Woods:

»Lange Zeit dachte ich, ich sei ein Monster.« Er hielt inne, um sich eine weitere Zigarette anzuzünden. »Als wäre ich unfähig, wahre Gefühle zu empfinden, wie Liebe.« Ich fing an zu lachen, aber er sagte nichts. Als ich ihn ansah, verstand ich, dass er es ernst meinte. »Das war nur ein Scherz«, lächelte er und weitete die Augen. »Ich bin kein Monster.«

Die Beziehung, die Nilab mit Marlowe eingeht, bleibt von Anfang an toxisch: Sie lügt über ihre Herkunft, und er betrügt mit ihr seine Freundin Doreen. Sie versuchen dennoch, das Lügen, das Misstrauen, die Angst zu überwinden, und zwar durch viele, viele Drogen, Exzesse und letztlich auch durch physische Gewaltakte, die Nilab anfangs noch stumm erträgt. Sie will Fotografin werden, dazu gehören, sich nicht mehr fremd fühlen.

»Sie ist eine alte Freundin von Eli«, sagte Doreen über mich. »Sie ist eine von uns. One of us …« Sie begann die Melodie von FREAKS zu summen, und obwohl ich sie in diesem Moment hassen wollte, bekam ich Gänsehaut. Es war mir unangenehm, aber ich wollte eine von ihnen sein. […] Als ich dreizehn oder vierzehn war, schloss ich nachts die Augen und stellte mir genau das vor: nicht unbedingt eine vor Bakterien triefende Toilettenkabine in einem schäbigen Club, die nach Sex und Fäkalien roch, sondern eine Gruppe von erhabenen Künstlern, die mich akzeptierten.

Nachdem Tod ihrer Mutter, den ihr Vater nicht überwindet, schafft Nilab es nicht, verbindlichen Anschluss zu ihrem Umfeld zu finden. Sie lügt, weil sie nicht sein will, wer sie ist. Die Erzählstimme nimmt mit. Sie sucht. Sie treibt umher, ängstlich, voller Begehren, voller Frustration, aber auch Hoffnung, die mit Tritten und Faustschlägen aus ihr herausgetrieben werden. Das Kleinkindverhalten spiegelt sich in der dissoziativen Schreib- und Erzählweise wider. Nebensächlichkeiten unterbrechen den Reflexionsfluss, kompositorisch ungünstig verästelte Handlungsfäden, lange Assoziationen über Gott und Welt, die keinen Eingang in die narrative Welt finden, und seltsam gewollte Metaphern:

Doreen klopfte leicht auf den Stuhl neben sich. Ihr eisiger Ton gab ihre Verletzlichkeit preis, ihre Stimme war wie die Oberfläche eines tauenden Sees.

Das alles erinnert stark an eine Neuaufnahme von Sylvia Plaths Die Glasglocke und ist es auch. Aria Abers Erzählerin verliert aber im Gegensatz zu Plaths den Faden und auch die dramatische Strenge ihres viktorianischen Zusammenbruchs. Plaths beschreibt einen harten Emanzipationsprozess, wohingegen in Good Girl im Grunde nichts passiert. Die Protagonistin wechselt vom Internat in die Uni in die Uni und findet auch nicht zu einer eigenen, selbstbewussten Stimme. Die Drogen haben einfach zu viel Spaß gemacht, und mit Drogen kann die leere, selbstmitleidige Fahrt auch bekanntermaßen immer weiter gehen, ohne dass das Trauma auch nur im geringsten durchschritten werden müsste.



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Details – ab hier Spoilergefahr (zur Erinnerung für mich):
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Inhalt: ● Protagonistin: Nilab Haddadi, 19 Jahre alt, lebt in Berlin, kommt nach dem Abitur in einem Mädcheninternat zurück in die Stadt, will studieren, schafft es aber nicht, sich zu fokussieren, will Fotografin werden, sucht Motive, verliebt sich in einen abgehalfterten US-amerikanischen Schriftsteller namens Marlowe Woods, verstrickt sich in eine toxische Beziehung, aus der sie letztlich mit Hilfe auch von ihrem Umfeld ausbricht, bevor sie nach London zieht, um dort Fotografie zu studieren.
● Zusammenfassung (kurz): Nilab fühlt sich fremd, sucht Sicherheit und Geborgenheit in einer Welt, die ihr diese Sicherheit verwehrt, als Afghanin, Migrantin und Halbwaise, in prekären Umständen aufgewachsen. Sie sucht Verbindlichkeit, sucht sie in einer Beziehung zu einer Vaterfigur, Marlowe. Als dieser eine dritte Frau in die Sexspiele einzubinden versucht, entschließt sie sich ihn zu verlassen (da es ihr um Verbindlichkeit ging). Sie löst sich von ihm, bekommt ihr Leben in den Griff, zieht um ein Jahr verspätet nach London, um dort Fotografie zu studieren.
● Zusammenfassung (lang):
Teil 1: Nilabs Rückkehr nach Berlin, Einschreiben für Kunstgeschichte an der Humboldt-Uni, jobbt im Jazz-Café, sucht Zerstreuung, Ablenkung in der Clubszene, u.a. um den Tod der Mutter zu verdrängen, lernt dort Marlowe Woods (36) kennen, dem sie ihre Herkunft verschweigt (sie sei Griechin, nicht Afghanin), geht mit ihm nach Hause. Sie sagt, sie will Fotografin werden. In der ersten Nacht schlafen sie nicht miteinander. Danach meldet er sich nicht, sie trägt seinen Mantel. Sie liest sein Buch. Schwierige Freundschaft mit Anna, Wiedertreffen mit Elias, einem Kosovo-Albaner, den sie aus ihrer Zeit in Münster kennt, lernt Doreen kennen, der Freundin von Marlowe. Im Bunker trifft sie Marlowe wieder, begleite ihn wieder nach Hause, erzählt ihr von seiner Ex-Freundin Adrienne, die er fluchtartig verlassen hat, nachdem sie ihn an seine Mutter erinnert hat. Nilab und er schlafen miteinander. Ihre Freundin Melanie schickt ihr die Adressen dreier Unis, an denen Nilab sich bewerben soll.
Teil 2: Sie geht statt zu Anna und Romy am Silvesterabend zu einer Vernissage von Marlowes Verlag, lernt Gabriela, seine Mäzenin kennen. Sie befreundet sich mit Doreen. Sie schauen vom Dach aus auf das Feuerwerk. Nilab gesteht Doreen, dass sie mit Marlowe schläft. Doreen rastet aus. Nilab konzentriert sich etwas mehr aufs Studium, trifft dort Doreen wieder, versöhnt sich mit ihr, begleitet sie nach Hause, wo sie, als überzeugte Marxistin-Leninistin, Nilab erzählt, dass sie Kafka-Forscherin werden möchte. Nilab kontaktiert irgendwann Marlowe wieder, der gereizt auf ihre Widerspenstigkeit nach der Sache mit Doreen reagiert. Sie verabredet sich mit ihm an seinem Geburtstag im Bunker. Elias und Doreen kommen zusammen, beide wollen sich nicht in den Todesstrudel von Marlowe hineinziehen lassen. Marlowe und Nilab kommen zusammen. Nilab erinnert sich an die erste Liebe, zu Setareh. Marlowe und sie gehen zu einer Benefizveranstaltung Gabrielas für afghanische Hunde. Sie streiten sich. Nilab provoziert Marlowe, der sie schubst. Sie provoziert ihn weiter, er schlägt sie. Marlowe will eine Beziehungspause. Nilab hält es nicht aus und trommelt gegen seine Tür. Sie tröstet sich bei Anna und Romy. Marlowe schickt eine SMS. Nilab geht zu ihm.
Teil 3: Sie fahren nach Venedig, zu einer großangelegten Veranstaltung, auf der Marlowe aus seinem Manuskript lesen soll. Die Lesung geht schief, Gabriela unzufrieden. Auf der Fahrt zu einer Villa erzählt der Taxifahrer von seiner Verschleppung und prekären Existenz. Nilab hört zu. Marlowe desinteressiert. Auf einer Party (Duino) bricht Nilab beim Anblick des Meeres zusammen, kotzt, zu viele Drogen, Nasenbluten vom Koks. Sie gesteht Marlowe, dass sie nicht aus Griechenland, sondern aus Afghanistan stammt. Sie kehren nach Berlin zurück, schweigend. In Berlin trifft sie mit Marlowe ihren Onkel im Taxi. Es kommt zum Streit mit dem Vater, der sie einsperrt. Nilab umarmt ihn dennoch. Sie gesteht ihrem ganzen Umfeld, dass sie afghanische, nicht griechische Eltern hat.
Teil 4: Vier Wochen später, im Juni, hebt der Vater den Hausarrest aus. Sie hat ihren Job im Jazz-Café verloren, wo sie schwarz arbeiten konnte. Sie entschuldigt sich bei Marlowe. Sie gehen wieder in den Bunker. Marlowe reißt eine junge Studentin auf, Lexi. In der Wohnung hat Marlowe, um Drogen zu verkaufen, zwei Nazis eingeladen, zum Feiern. Die Situation eskaliert. Die Nazis verschwinden. Marlowe gesteht, dass er pleite ist, dass er von Gabriela nach seiner verkorksten Lesung geschasst wurde. Nilab zieht bei ihm ein, arbeitet bei American Apparel und er in einer Bank. Nilab schreibt sich nicht erneut in die Uni ein, meldet sich nicht beim Vater, antwortet nicht auf seine Anrufe. Sie fahren auf ein Festival in Brandenburg, wo Marlowe mit einem jungen Mädchen anbandelt, Nikita. Er will mit Nilab einen Dreier. Sie entzieht sich ihm, sagt Eli, dass sie von Marlowe geschlagen wird. Sie bleibt dennoch bei ihm, obwohl Doreen und Eli ihr versuchen zu helfen. Als sie zurückkommen, ist Marlowes Wohnung ausgeräumt, alle Drogen, die er verkaufen wollte, verschwunden. Sie verdächtigen die Nazis. Verbrechen an Migranten nehmen zu. Marlowe ist es egal. Doreen und Nilab gehen auf Demonstrationen. Marlowe beginnt wieder zu schreiben. Nilab will sich von ihm trennen. Marlowe sagt aber, sie seien noch nicht fertig. Sie aber zieht zu Romy, in Annas Zimmer. Elias und Doreen sind glücklich. Sie trifft sich mit Elias. Nilab bewirbt sich erneut bei den Universitäten. Eine nimmt sie. Sie zieht nach London (zwei Jahre verspätet).
… vgl. Sylvia Plaths „Die Glasglocke”, Deniz Ohde „Ich stelle mich schlafend“, Mascha Unterlehberg „Wenn wir lächeln“ … die Gewaltsituation wird klar herausgearbeitet, ein gewisser Selbsthass, eine Suche, eine Möglichkeit nach Verbindlichkeit ausgenutzt. Die zwei Handlungsstränge: Situation der Flüchtlinge und Selbstwerdung der Protagonistin bleiben zu lose verknüpft, durch die Selbstverleugnung Nilabs. Die Figuren bleiben schwach. Der politische Hintergrund nur assoziativ. Die Clubszenen werden dicht und überzeugend beschrieben. Desolates Leben wie Virginie Despentes „Baise-Moi“. Drogenexzesse, Lügen, Angst, Angewiesenheit auf die Hilfe anderer. Auch die Liebesgeschichte bleibt unterbelichtet, die Verbindung zu Elias, zu ihrem Vater. Es fehlt der Fokus. Weder Hedonismus noch Tragik, noch Dramatik. Darstellung völliger Orientierungslosigkeit, die nicht durchschritten wird, auch narrativ keine Spannung erzeugt. Handlungstechnisch sehr langweilig, da keine Entwicklung aus der Figur selbst heraus entsteht, alles von außen, langweiliges Driften von der Schule zur Uni zur nächsten Uni. --> 1 Stern

Form: Anspruchsvoll, sprachlich interessant, mit Intensität geschrieben, tatsächlich mit Augenmerk auf Melodie, Rhythmik, Wortschatz. Metaphern zielen oft daneben, wirken gewollt, sprengen den Fluss. Dennoch abwechslungsreiche Satzstrukturen, Verdichtungen. Sprachlust spürbar. Dennoch unbalanciert, mit Höhen und Tiefen. Auch falsche Verwendung von Tempi. --> 3 Sterne

Erzählstimme: Unsituiert rückblickende Ich-Erzählerin, die diesen sehr divergierenden Strauß von Motiven zusammenzuhalten versucht: Künstlerinwerdung, politische Angst, erotische Versuchung, Hedonismus, Fremdheitgefühl, Selbstentfremdung, Selbstkasteiung etc … die Erzählstimme passt jedoch. Sie gibt gute Verdichtungen, Raffungen, Dehnungen. Sie besitzt Konsistenz. Die Reflexion findet zu wenig statt, und die Figur besitzt ein zu oberflächliches Selbst- und Fremderleben, wodurch die Perspektive fehlbesetzt erscheint. Die Perspektive aber ist stimmig. --> 3 Sterne

Komposition: Komposition geht nicht auf. Das Ineinanderfädeln von rechtsradikaler Bedrohung mit individuell-orientierungslosem Hedonismus und selbstgebauten Lügengebäuden funktioniert nicht. Personal-erzählt wäre es immersiver und glaubwürdiger geworden, denn Nilab wirkt unselbständig, nicht selbstbewusst, ängstlich und handlungsunfähig. D.h. die Erzählung wirkt trist und unglaubwürdig. Sie sucht nach Gott und Verbindlichkeit, findet ihn aber nicht. Distanzierteres Erzählen hätte mehr Tiefenschärfe in Bezug auf die Eltern und Mitmenschen erlaubt. Das Politische wirkt zudem aufgesetzt. Eine Teenagerin will Anerkennung, Reichtum und bekommt sie nicht. --> 1 Stern

Leseerlebnis: Durch die Sprache keine unerträgliche Tristesse. Dennoch hielt mich nichts an dem Buch. Die Figur interessierte mich schlicht nicht. Ja, ich fühlte mit ihr mit. Ich litt auch mit ihr, aber es gab keine interessante literarischen Szenen, Ereignisse. Die Figur Nilabs ist langweilig, pompös und ein Möchtegern-Star. Sehr betrüblich, diese ganzen Urteile, dieses ganze Gehetze, diese Unzufriedenheit mit sich und der Welt, und dieses selbstmitleidige Drogennehmen, diese Referenzen und Vorbilder, diese Herumschlängeln und Herumangeln nach Anerkennung, die selbst als Trauerspiel erfahren wird. Mit viel Gefühl für Sprache, aber kaum etwas zu erzählen, und dann perspektivlos daneben gegriffen. --> 2 Sterne

[Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé]

"It would be almost masochistic of me to believe in fate."

The prose in this was stunning, and there were so many painfully relatable sections, particularly the the portrayal of shame and poverty and how it distorts friendships.

[Blondshell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to read this book

[le.lyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es ist immer so enttäuschend, wenn man mit einem Buch beginnt, denkt, es wird ein Jahreshighlight und dann nimmt es aber ab der Hälfte ab.
Nilas Leben ist von Gewalt geprägt: Armut, häusliche Gewalt, Unterdrückung, Drogenkonsum, exzessives Feiern, Rassismus und der fehlende Respekt vor sich selbst. Sie flüchtet sich in die Arme eines älteren Schriftstellers, der ihr größter Fehler sein wird. Nila erlaubt es uns einen intimen Einblick in die "Berliner Unterwelt" und in eine gewaltvolle Beziehung zu bekommen.
Aria Aber hat eine wunderschöne Erzälstimme, berührt mein Herz mit jedem Satz und dennoch habe ab der Hälfte Schwierigkeiten gehabt, dranzubleiben. Ich kam aber durch die einschlägigen und unvorhersehbaren Ereignisse immer wieder in die Geschichte rein.
Aria Aber hat sich dennoch in mein Herz gelesen und ich werde diese wunderschöne Sprache ein leben lang mit mir tragen.

[Mari Johnston · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had a strong start but overall felt disjointed with a cast of uninteresting and unlikeable characters.

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv)]

i am listening to this while i work to feel transported away from the shackles of capitalism and hustle culture <3

[Vartika · Rating 3 out of 5]

19-year-old Nila has no trouble getting into Berghain. In fact, she has been partying since the age of 16; losing herself in techno, sex, and drug-fueled benders in the wake of her mother's death. It is Berlin in the early noughties, neo-nazism runs as deep as hedonism, and when asked – inevitably – where she's really from, she says she's Greek. Egyptian. Italian. Israeli. Anything but Afghan, anything but Nilab Haddadi.

Born to Muslim refugees and coming of age in a post-Rostock, post-9/11 landscape, Nila was always too aware of her differences from her well-off, blonde, European peers at school, far removed by the decades of Western colonialism and the fundamentalism it ushered into the country her parents had to flee and untouched by the extant isolationism and xenophobia that greeted them in the west. She grew up ashamed of the poverty and marginality of her life in Gropiusstadt, the broken spirit of her father – once a doctor in Kabul, now stripped of his professional qualifications and forced, like many of his compatriots, to drive taxis for a living – and her now departed mother's exhortations for her to be "a dokhtare khub, a good girl". Yearning for beauty and truth, she began hiding her origins and found escape in losing herself to drugs and dancing. She found, too, the motivation and mentorship to pursue her artistic dreams through her new boyfriend, a charming, older American writer. So why does she still feel like a "dokhtare kharab, a broken, bad, ruined girl"?

Aria Aber's Good Girl puts a valuable spin on the sybaritic Berlin novel. Amidst its extensive if also repetitive exploration of the glamour, grime, and excesses of the infamous city's legendary underground culture lies a diseased reality, brought out through a subtle parallel with a protagonist who, too, struggles to come to terms with her own history and surrounding violence. Though Nila's disaffection and self-destruction appears, at first glance, to match the millennial ennui of trendy contemporary literary fiction, it is more nuanced: her obsession with an exclusively white, western literary and aesthetic canon betrays her internal conflict as a racialised subject, and her relationship with her boyfriend is less a commentary on a broken individual as it is of the opportunities that assimilation and proximity to whiteness seem to promise to someone in her position – a promise that, as Nila and the reader soon realise, is hinged on manipulation and exploitation. Though the neo-Nazi violence surging across the city has always impacted her home life, it is when it begins bleeding into her carefully-cultivated social world that she realises the dangers of burying and effacing her heritage. While politics is not the subject of the novel, it is very much the objective; the subtext coded into and traversed through its detailed depiction of the fast life.

All that being said, this remains an imperfect debut novel and does very much read like one. Considering Aber's accomplishments as a poet, the lack of formal innovation and poetic precision here is conspicuous, and the few devices she does use seem ill-employed: though Nila's story supposedly comes to us in retrospect, the text suffers from a noticable lack of reflection, and this narrative layer almost completely comes away after a certain point. The writing is observant and expressive but suffers from an excess of repetition, likely intended for effect but instead imparting all the club scenes with a frustrating limpness – and there are a lot of club scenes. The main flaw here, however, is the pace of the story – as a reader I felt like I was ready for a catalyst way before Nila was, which is very lifelike but made her story harder to sit with. I can see why some readers may be tempted to give up halfway through, but in my experience persevering was worth the while.

Flawed, but good.

[Shelby (catching up on 2025 reviews) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW 🎧

Thank you #partner @prhaudio for my #gifted copy. 💕

Good Girl
Aria Aber
Available 1/14

"I lied. I am Afghan."

Good Girl is a stunner of a debut!

The story follows Nila, an ethnically ambiguous young adult coming of age against the backdrop of the Berlin underground techno scene. In an Islamophobic, post-9/11 society, Nila—the only child of Afghan refugees—keeps her heritage a secret. In a haze of drugs and booze—and in a relationship with an abusive American writer—Nila navigates the challenges of young adulthood and the complexities of her Muslim identity.

A nostalgic, compelling, multilayered, beautifully written coming-of-age journey you won't want to miss.

🎧 Narrator Mozhan Navabi delivers a breathtaking performance. Not only is her voice easy on the ears, she fully embodies the many layers of Nila, as if Nila herself is telling her story. Highly recommend this format!

[Kristine]

Congratulations 🎉 Good Girl has been Long-Listed for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. A Coming Of Age Story of a Woman from Afghanistan Background who has lived in Germany. This book was just Short-Listed. Always, like to read these books.

Just finished this and have to think on it a while. It was honest and raw, yet also difficult to read as I had to go along with Lila each day, each party, each drug fueled moment. Yet, she was feeling as she did for a reason and she describes that so very well.