Kirinna’s Reviews > Das Mädchen und der Totengräber > Status Update

The finale is sooo good that it bumps this book from 3 stars to 4, however I really can't give 5 stars after an infuriating middle part and the "resolution" that Julia is a goody good girl who helps the poor and disenfranchised (what she is, is a prick).

called it.

At least you can say this book leaves me much more invested than the last because of the drama!
Still think it's a worse book and I've already read the next one so I know she isn't getting any better. Hopefully the fourth one resolves that drama so we can focus on the investigation and the other characters again.

Leo is stuck up and of a different class than Julia but she is much more stuck up in this book. She doesn't want to do her job despite needing it for Julia (remember, she said the dancer job doesn't pay enough in the last book), she never tries to contact him, never asks about him.
SHE is the one who talks about the poor little boys, then when Leo investigates in that case she's angry he's busy. Awful character.

"When did you ever do something that helped me?"
-> gave her an insanely expensive camera
-> gave her a job as the first female photographer that pays better then any other of her jobs
-> took her to expensive restaurants, theatre, bought her clothes, etc.
"Uwuwu but I love you despite all these things you do only for yourself."
-> shows this love by breaking up with him, ignoring him, doing whatever she wants

in a perverse twist of fate, the relationship between Leo and Paul of hateful respect is much more interesting then any other relationship in this series.

The case itself is good though, reminds me a little of the second case in the pendergast series at this point. Which I wouldn't have to hear about Julia again though. "Uhuhu he leaves her hanging to go to work" Well one of them actually HAS a job and is even getting more popular with his colleagues now that he works professionally.

and no, her getting fired for being ill while a man would keep his job are no excuses. Julia knows this can happen to her and she isn't even ill, she's going to theatre with her bf, going to restaurants, going to the zoo with her daughter and investigating a case.
She just doesn't want to do her job and doesn't care at all about what'll happen. While Leon's character progressed in this one hers regressed.

I'm so annoyed at Julia for wasting the opportunity to be the first female crime photographer and "letting" herself become jobless when she has to care for a disabled child. Obvs everyone is very sexist, but I can't imagine any woman at that time behaving like her when she knows the only other options she has left are prostitution and marrying. "How am I going to pay for her medicine?" is a joke question

Besides that it's a good story so far, I like the Egyptian flair and hearing more about little Anna from the last book.