4,5

Characters:
Elizabeth/Liesl, big sister, responsible for siblings and household, talented musician, likes to compose music,
Katharina/ Käthe, young sister (middle child), mostly defined through her beauty
Goblin King/Erlkönig, King of the Underground, must take a wife to ensure that there won't be eternal winter, talented musician, something in between goblin and human

Themes: finding oneself, sisterhood, family, love, being a woman and standing up for oneself in a time where women were not seen as worthy as men, folklore, music, bad parents

Cover: (still waiting on hardcover copy)
Dust jacket:
Book:

Author: Debut, want to read more

Setting: Munich, Germany

POV: 1st Person (Elizabeth)

Liked: Characters, plot, sexy times, character development, creativity, portraying of emotions longing and lust, and why lust is not love and love is so much more, "writing with all senses" - hearing, tasting, feeling, inclusion of german mythical elements and language and that NOT in WW2 literature,
Did not like: the depiction of "plainness" and everyone agreeing that one is beautiful and one is not, the only thing that really got me out of the story at times was, that the german phrases - actually just the phrase "Der Erlkönig" was used almost on every page and the latter really felt not right. I (as a german) would have liked it better without the article just "Erlkönig" or the Erlkönig. I just wonder why they fixed the article because mostly the article would have been wrong in these sentences. But that really is the only thing that bugged me.