Us children from Bahnhof Zoo

A really good book in my opinion, that influenced me and my perception on things is "Us
children from Bahnhof Zoo". It is a book written about the author's backstory.

This novel is about a teenage girl that lived in Berlin who got into a bad group of friends
from school at about 11 years old that taught her about drugs and even did some with her,
which turned into a habit and then an addiction. The action is taking place in between 1975
and 1978, when Germany was still a communist country, so the rules were pretty strict, but
apparently not strict enough to keep teenagers clean, as a lot of them were using heroin, at
least in that specific period.She lost many friends because of heroin and because of her
addiction she lost her parents faith, trust and respect when they found out. In my opinion,
the saddest part about the book is that she was so desperate that she became a child
prostitute with her friends.

What I’ve gotten from this book is that no matter the context, it’s really important to keep
your friends close and try to understand them as long as long as they do the same thing, and
also having a limit that you respect can be helpful in certain situations, such as Christiane F.
(the author) got herself into. Another interesting aspect of the book is the visualisation of
her parents ignorance towards their children (she had a sister), or even the denial because
which parent wants to see their kid addicted to anything, especially drugs. The way the
protagonist is able to trick her parents and her teachers shows how intelligent she is and
how ignorant most people were, that really helped me open my eyes and start paying
attention to the things happening around me way more. Another thing i personally liked
about the book is Christiane’s love for animals, which we share, and we also both find
comfort in them.

Peer pressure is also an important aspect of the book, because Christiane wouldn’t have
tried drugs for the first time (at least not at the young age of 11 years old) with her friends if
they didn’t make her feel inferior for not being sure if she wanted to try or not at first. Her
friend group was a bad influence overall because when she tried to quit they always got her,
as well as her boyfriend at the time, Detlev (name from the book, I couldn’t find his real
name) back into it. At the same time, surprisingly the support between their group of
friends was impressive considering the fact that some of the time they were so thoughtful
and understanding while on cold turkey. For example, Detlev became a sex worker so that
Christiane didn’t have to. The reason was using which isn’t so thoughtful, but still.

One of the not so good aspects shown is the book is the lack of interes the addiction centers
were putting into helping their patients get clean. Some of them even refused to help
Christiane because she was too young, and let’s remember this is based on a true story, if
not a completely true story.

In conclusion I recommend the book to anyone, especially the newer one which also has
pictures from back then. Also both the movie and small series are really good and
captivating.