Feuchtgebiete
Charlotte Roche
 Set in an anonymous German city, Feuchtgebiete is told by 18 year-old Helen Memel, a schoolgirl who spends some days in the proctological ward of a hospital to be treated for anal fissure caused by the careless shaving of her anal hair. Deep at heart Helen is lonely and bored, and has been so since the breakup of her parents' marriage. Her secret plan is to reunite her father and mother by having them visit her at the same time. However, her parents seem to have little interest in their daughter's well-being and show up only occasionally, only for short periods of time, and at different hours. When she learns that her surgery, which included the removal of haemorrhoids, has been successful and she is going to be released soon, she desperately looks for means to prolong her hospital stay. She secretly rams the pedal of her hospital bed into her anus and immediate emergency surgery has to be carried out to prevent extreme blood loss. Thus having successfully extended her stay, she waits in vain for her miracle to happen: her parents have stopped visiting altogether, and when she tries to contact them by phone all she gets is their respective answering machines. During this time she falls in love with her favourite male nurse called Robin and tries to draw the young man into her world. At the end of the novel the doctor tells Helen she can go home and she asks Robin if she can go to live with him. It becomes apparent that Helen is mentally ill, following a childhood experience when her mother tried to commit suicide. As the novel ends Robin is escorting her through a door in the hospital.