"There’s a great deal of contemporary diagnosis in this narrative. Verena Kessler humorously tackles performance pressure, control, body images, and social media." - SWR lesenswert
"Maximum entertainment. This book hits like a great techno spinning class: fast-paced, sweaty, and not a second too long on its 192 pages."
- Süddeutsche Zeitung
"The gym becomes a symbolic place where adherence to external standards, long detached from aesthetic ideals, serves as a release valve for potentially pathological ambition, much like a career in the quantification-obsessed working world." - Welt am Sonntag
"Gym is a text about achievement, self-punishment, and beauty. You’d happily spend a few more chapters in the locker room with this deeply disturbed, eloquent narrator." - FAS
"Gym is a novel that gets under your skin — and not just metaphorically. With precise language and a keen sense for the absurdities of everyday life, Verena Kessler has created a work that is both entertaining and disturbing. It’s an invitation to question your own relationship with your body and self-image— without wagging a moralistic finger." - Merkur.de
"Kessler holds up a merciless mirror to everyone familiar with ambition, obsession, and the pressure to be perfect — and drives her protagonist into a madness from which there’s no escape. #unhingedwomen at its best." - Emotion
"Gym is an immersive experience, a ‘feast’ for all the senses: we hear the tearing muscle fibers, feel the aching limbs, smell the sweat, and taste raw meat. At times brutal and unappetizing—but especially because it’s told from a female perspective—it’s also refreshing and invigorating." - NDR Kultur
Shiny mirrors, muscle definition and casual flirtations at the counter.
The protagonist in Verena Kessler’s vibrant new novel loves her new job at MEGA GYM. There’s no pressure, she doesn’t have to do overtime, her colleagues are delightful and her boss is a proud feminist. Everything would be perfect – if only she hadn’t told a white lie during the job interview.
Because she claimed she had recently given birth, everyone constantly asks her about and wants to see photos of her baby. When bodybuilder Vick appears, it becomes clear that a fictional child is not the only secret the mysterious narrator is harbouring.
A story about obsession, ambition and the selfdestructive side of beautiful appearances.