This was my favorite book when I was very young. I thought the story and the illustrations were wonderful, and there are also some activities and suggestions, i.e. how to catch and keep garden spiders as pets.

Instantly pulled in from just the first paragraph, here is a novel told in the voice of a heroine who is at once sensitive and insightful and then callously indifferent. Magdalena the Sinner reveals so many different dialogues on religion, sex, relationships and insanity through a sharp narrator. The main character sometimes appears surprisingly absent from her own life, yet her decisions, as sick as they become, seem strangely justified. I loved her strong voice, her candor, and her immediate ability to express the very same thoughts that I didn't know I even had. I wish I had written the book myself. She absolutely fascinated me - read the entire book nearly in one late night sitting.

Author:Lilian Faschinger Title: Magdalena the Sinner: A novel.

Superb title for entertaining one's self. Easygoing kind of reading, while on the meantime the reader meditates concerning some life, love, sexual, moral, religious issues, and taboos, that Lilian Faschinger puts in words of Magdalena, her principal character. Never bothersome, written as monologue with admirable prose and vocabulary. The main character Magdalena, a red hair, nomad woman, relates her uneven, varied and full of "ups and downs" life, intermitting some metaphysical reflections of her unique audience: An original person, wearing an original outfit and with a biased background.

Regretfully, I read a translated version, since the beauty of prose, the profound description of places, personalities, circumstances, superstitions and ideologies is outstanding. It must be indeed superior in its original language. Read it. It is great fun and will make you laugh a lot.

I had heard a lot about this book on various lesbian websites, about how wonderful and affirming it was. Needless to say I was excited when my girlfriend gave me the book for my birthday. My excitement didn't last through the first twenty pages, however.

Someone else already stated earlier the problems I had with this book: poorly organized writing, too much emphasis on dates and names that aren't important to the story. The author paints the main lesbian characters in the book as sex-crazed women who are merely lesbians because they've been burned by men. She seems to think that a few paragraphs of a graphic sex scene between Aimee and Jaguar is enough to make us swoon at their apparent "love" for each other. I didn't swoon, I rolled my eyes. I am sure Ms. Fischer is a wonderful author, but I don't think this story is one suited for her. She breaks what I think is a cardinal rule of writing someone's biography: stay objective. It was obvious as I reached the end of the book - after some struggle - that Ms. Fischer thinks of Lilly's Jewish lover as a saint, while Lilly is portrayed as a spoiled little rich Nazi. Ms. Fischer's disdain for Lilly Wust is evident throughout the book, and she even goes so far as to say she doesn't believe that Lilly and her lover would have stayed together! She also states that she has much more sympathy for Lilly's lover than for Lilly herself. I would have thought that subjectivity had no place in Aimee & Jaguar. All in all, despite my respect for Ms. Fischer at attempting to tackle such a deep issue, this book was a profound disappointment. What should have been "A Love Story" instead comes off as a boring history lesson, and a platform for the author's grievances against the Nazis.

I basically read through this book in one sitting - it is emotionally gripping and interesting from a historical standpoint as well. Though I am left with a few unanswered questions and am frustrated at certain blanks in the narrative, the sincerity of the story makes up for this (if the exact chronology were easier to follow, I would have given the book five stars). The format of the book also works well; the mix of diary entries, historical back-ground, poems, letters, and personal testimonies permits the reader to piece together herself the many elements of this touching story. Not only is _Aimee & Jaguar_ difficult to put down, it is also difficult to leave down: there is a strong temptation to pick up the story of Lilly and Felice again and re-read the lines of discovery, love, and loss.

I just finished Aimee and Jaguar. What an incredibly written book. Ms Fischer did a beautiful job of tracing back to the meeting between Lilly and 'Lice as well as, the stress of the Nazi Germany. Not only was this an excellent love story but also a great biography....I thank Ms. Fischer for giving me a little piece of these two womens love story and lives.

This true story is very simple told, but it's rather well written by Erich Hackl, the probably most famous Austrian author. I agree that's a good and important book, but I just don't like such sad, true stories about World War 2.