Thanks to @whatkissreads for putting this book on my radar. I absolutely loved it. Love in Case of Emergency (also published as Love in Five Acts) is a series of five interconnected vignettes about the different ways we love and are loved. Krien explores love in its myriad forms: romantic love, sibling love, parental love, self-love, sex, and love of career/accomplishment. She also deftly examines the ways love is inextricably linked to grief. 

It was interesting to read stories set in the former GDR (East Germany) and see characters who lived through reunification and how that affected their lives and choices. Though this wasn’t a major plot point, Krien wove these observations in to give her characters context, which I appreciated. 

But perhaps my favorite takeaway from this book comes from the way she chose to structure it. Each vignette centers a different woman’s story, wherein we meet the characters in different ways. The main character in one story is a side character in the other stories. It’s brilliantly done because Krien uses this structure to show that while we’re all the hero in our own lives, in other people’s lives we may be a minor character or even a villain. It was so well done and left me contemplating long after I finished. Definitely pick this one up if you come across it. 

CW: death of a child, infidelity, divorce, abortion, anti-vax and anti-immigrant rhetoric