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Rating: 
Summary: Mandatory reading!
Review: I have to admit, I saw the film before reading the book, and I recommend them both. In today's climate in America, - when the police profession is considered one of the noblest by liberals and conservatives alike, and the so-called "liberal" press, which crossed the line into tabloid journalism awhile ago, and which still hides behind the myth/lie of "objectivity," - this book is as timely and relevant today as it ever was, and should be mandatory viewing/reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but rather outdated
Review: Katharina Blum is a hard working, honest housekeeper with a small car, her own house and, after her divorce from her husband, not much of a social life. One evening during carnaval she decides to go dancing. Here she meets a man who she really likes, but who turns out to have a criminal record. And this is when things start to go wrong... A journalist from the ZEITUNG ("newspaper"), a pulp magazine, claiming to be a respectable newspaper, puts hus teeth into the story and starts damaging Katharina and her family, friends and acquitances. In the end Katharina takes justice into her own hands.Place and time of this pamphlet (as Böll calls this book in an afterword) are West-Germany, 1974, so a conservative society at the height of the fear for the Red Army Faction, with an unbridled influence of the pulp press, in particular the notorious BILD-Zeitung. Böll has written a convincing accusation against these type of journals and the fact that people actually believe what they say. The problem with this book is that it is outdated: in the meantime the world has moved on, readers (even those of newspapers like the ZEITUNG) have become more aware of the fact that these type of newspapers tend to lie and the accusations made in those types of newspapers are nowadays even more outrageous than in 1974. I also had some problems with the style of writing: even though the book is well written (what one may expect from a Nobel laureate), the narrator actively comments on what is going on, which is sometimes irritating and does not add anything to the story.
Rating:
Summary: An early attack on the power of tabloid journalism.
Review: Katharina Blum's murder of a newspaper reporter, to which she has confessed on the opening page, is not the point of attack for a mystery story, despite that implication on the book jacket. There is too little suspense and character development to make you care much about her. Instead, Boll uses the murder and its aftermath to offer a cautionary tale about overzealous police investigators and the unfettered tabloid press--showing how the press descends on Katharina and everyone who has ever come into contact with her, twisting words, creating false impressions based upon police department leaks, casting aspersions, ruining lives, and inciting Katharina to eventual murder. Sound familiar? The novel may have been startling, and even controversial, when it was published in 1974, but no contemporary reader familiar with the tabloids at the supermarket checkout or with sensational talk shows conducting outrageously one-sided investigations will find this depiction of the press even slightly shocking. In fact, the methods of the press in this novel seem unrealistic, not because they are so extreme, but because they are so obvious, crude, and lacking in subtlety. Boll may have been prophetic with this novel in 1974, but it is a product of its own time. While it may confirm that the conflict between responsible journalism and irresponsible sensationalism has a long history, it offers few useful insights for the present day.
Rating:
Summary: An early attack on the power of tabloid journalism.
Review: Katharina Blum's murder of a newspaper reporter, to which she has confessed on the opening page, is not the point of attack for a mystery story, despite that implication on the book jacket. There is too little suspense and character development to make you care much about her. Instead, Boll uses the murder and its aftermath to offer a cautionary tale about overzealous police investigators and the unfettered tabloid press--showing how the press descends on Katharina and everyone who has ever come into contact with her, twisting words, creating false impressions based upon police department leaks, casting aspersions, ruining lives, and inciting Katharina to eventual murder. Sound familiar? The novel may have been startling, and even controversial, when it was published in 1974, but no contemporary reader familiar with the tabloids at the supermarket checkout or with sensational talk shows conducting outrageously one-sided investigations will find this depiction of the press even slightly shocking. In fact, the methods of the press in this novel seem unrealistic, not because they are so extreme, but because they are so obvious, crude, and lacking in subtlety. Boll may have been prophetic with this novel in 1974, but it is a product of its own time. While it may confirm that the conflict between responsible journalism and irresponsible sensationalism has a long history, it offers few useful insights for the present day.
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