Gretchen, my girl

Gretchen, mein Mädchen is a novel by the Austrian children's book author Christine Nöstlinger and after Gretchen Sackmeier and Gretchen, Hänschen-Kummer has the third volume in the Gretchen-Sackmeier series.

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Gretchen is 18 years old and lives with her mother and sister Mädi again with father Egon and brother Hänschen. Gretchen's mother is meanwhile a social worker and is still friends with Marie-Luise (who has meanwhile developed into an esoteric and sees the lunar religion as the solution to the gender conflict).

Although Gretchen hardly does anything for school anymore, she still has good grades, as her teachers - in memory of her heyday - assume that she is in poor daily condition if she does poorly. Gretchen is happy with her life, but occasionally she longs for the time with Marie-Luise and has difficulties getting used to her father and brother again. Hänschen is the family's problem child, who can only be promoted through Gretchen's tutoring and her intercession with his teachers. And her little sister Mädi develops strange eating habits - sometimes she just wants to eat lard for weeks, sometimes crispbread-without-everything.

Gretchen spends a lot of time with her friends Gabriele and Ixi, and she still has her two friends Florian and Hinzel, but Florian breaks up with her when she does not agree to his vacation plans. Gretchen is not very sad about it, but she is deeply unhappy about Hinzel's sudden disappearance and realizes that she loves him, not Florian. At the same time, cracks in her parents' marriage appear again - Gretchen accidentally finds out that one of her mother's clients, a former prisoner, is also her mother's admirer. But Gretchen persuades her mother not to say anything to her father yet. The story ends with Gretchen and Hinzel's reconciliation.