The European young adult books often have a different sensibility to them and this one is of the same vein. A contemplation. ( )

I read the original German and found it remarkable, and then I ordered the English translation for my teen, and read it again myself in English, and disliked it intensely. The English narrator sounded like a whiner, and the German one sounded, well, echt. The translation was quite close to the original so I can't really tell you what was going on in my head, only that this was a much better German book than English one. ( )

This a story about a 15 year old German girl who starts hanging out with two new friends. Laura and Phillip. "The Girl From Mars" tells the story of what happens when Miriam, develops feelings for another girl.

Review by CM

This book has garnered multiple awards and much praise in its native Germany, but the only reason I even know about it is that in my past job as a bookseller I saw it in a catalog. Only 29 people on LibraryThing have it, and to me, that's a travesty. It's a beautiful story of first love, told in the quirky voice of Miriam, a self-described plain fifteen-year-old girl in a small town who dreams, like many of us, of getting out and living a fabulous big-city life. She wishes she were beautiful and popular and spends every morning commiserating in the girls' restroom with her two best friends, Ines and Suse. Then enters Laura, with her wild black hair and carefree attitude, who rolls her own cigarettes and goes to clubs. Miriam is instantly enchanted, and begins to feel something she's never felt before, especially for a girl. GIRL FROM MARS is beautifully written, and rife with genuine emotion. This is a book that should not be ignored, and I urge anyone who can to track down a copy. It will make your heart ache in all the right ways. ( )

Miriam is fifteen, living is a small town, bored with her small town life and friends, until she meets Laura, who takes her out for a night in the city. Soon Miriam develops romantic feelings for her. ( )