Lesung & Gespräch mit Inga Hanka ("Litte Hollywood")

Reading & Discussion with Inga Hanka, author of *Little Hollywood*

A summer full of freedom, caught between fear, courage, and a fresh start

Real life is a bitter disappointment. Leonie, known as Leo, wants to dive headfirst into freedom after school but ends up facing the harsh reality instead. Arguments with her mother, a criminal complaint against her father, and summer days spent with her little brother—instead of a summer with Olli, who first kissed her and then dumped her. Luckily, there’s “Little Hollywood,” the video store on the corner, whose only downside is Jo—who has “booze and mischief” tattooed on his arm and forces Leo to play “Truth or Dare” every time, even though she just wants to escape into a movie.

Torn between the desire to throw herself into life and the fear of falling flat, Leo embarks on an unforgettable summer in which she learns what it means to be brave.

A tribute to the late ’90s: With great charm, Inga Hanka tells the story of those weeks in life when it feels like everything and nothing is happening at the same time—the weeks of the last summer before finally becoming an adult.

Inga Hanka, born in 1988, worked as a copywriter and photographer for radio, print, and various online media before combining creative writing techniques with modern coaching methods in workshops under the motto “Create instead of consume.” She lives with her husband and their three children in Kempen on the Lower Rhine, where they run a nursery.