Rating: 
Summary: Good points and bad points.
Review: The "Reader" was the first book i read out of the Oprah Book CLub, and i must say it impressed me enough to read more. However, once i read another from the famed club, i realized this book was only mediocore. It was a very simple read. The kind of book you could put down for a months time (which i did), then come back to it. Now i will say that i couldn't just stop reading the novel, i had to finish it. The first part of the novel was very well written in aspects of storyline. In characterization, it was not all that good. I didn't have any feelings or emotions for the characters, none at all. It was just a simple story to keep me busy when i had nothing to do. Now if you want a REALLY good book for the club, try "House Of Sand and Fog", by ANdre DubusIII, that book was an amazing read, however the ending left you hanging and you will want to know so much more about the characters. It was still an extrodinary book!!
Rating: 
Summary: keen on feelings
Review: This is one of the books that just embrace you in the time that story is told, with considerable amount of subtile emotions which probably has erupted only from author's private life. Life of Hannah is itself very interesting, but story of passion between young boy and older women which can be lock only in their private little own world is a sensitive story which last all life. Story explains in melanholic matter how early experiences are very important for adult life, no matter how long are lasting, just to have very strong emotional impact. The book says one impotant thing about our life, that little, tiny moments, matters in our life are important to us, on which we reconcile with each other.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been a great novel
Review: This book has the basic outline of a great novel/story. Unfortunately, it reads to me as a manuscript. Unfinished, and unexpanded. The story could have been developed more. The author didn't delve deeply enough into the characters or history. I was very disappointed by what should have been a great novel.
Rating:
Summary: Not very entertaining
Review: At first the book was good, but it grew tiresome. I found myself skipping pages at a time. You really didn't get to know the characters. I didn't connect with the main character at all. His affair with the older woman was interesting at first, but it was no great love story. If you're looking for a quick read, but no feelings this is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Oh, Oprah
Review: Once again, Oprah has chosen a book and turned it into an immediate bestseller. Even acknowledging that every reader must bring his or her own body of information to understanding a particular work, I found THE READER to be totally predictable.This obviously autobiographical novel is set in the Germany immediately following World War II. It concerns the fortuitous love affair between an adolescent boy and a mature woman. There's plenty of foreshadowing, so the reader instantly realizes that this woman harbors shameful secrets. Considering the moment in time, it is easy to guess at what those secrets may be. It is a telling comment on the attitudes of the Nazis that the secret that a modern person, of any non-German background, will find so horribly appalling is not the same fact which so shames the woman. Instead, there is another secret which she would choose death over revealing. I found nothing surprising in any aspect of the tale. Since I read it in English, having been translated from the German, I am not able to say whether the quality of the writing of the original was superior. The translation certainly was acceptable.
Rating:
Summary: starts out strong and then...
Review: This books starts out strong. Through the developments between the main character and hannah, his older lover, one learns much of both of these characters and in an interesting manner. the language is engaging eithout being either too complex or too plain. The second half of the novel, for the most part, plays on moral issues that are somehow related to the first half, namely, the main characters relationship with hannah, who turns out to be an ex-nazi. Unfortunately, Schlink merley presents these various issues without really any deep introspection. i suppose that this allows for extended discussion on the book, however, it still seems as if the authour could have delved deeper into the issues himself. we are only given the surface. This is the only book of Schlink's that i have read, but it also seemed as if the style of writing better suited the first half of the book, which was light and airy in comparison to the morality-laden second half. Furthermore, the first half of the book kept me interested by presenting the dynamics between the two primary characters, however, even thouugh both characters continue to develop, much of the vigor runs out. In the second half of the book, the character development seems to be subserviant to the questions of morality. It goes from spontanious and concise to laborous and predictable.
Rating:
Summary: A Endearing Tale
Review: This book was easy to read and enjoyable, as well as touching. It grabs at your heart, and pulls you along. The past is brought back to us in a whole different light. As much as you don't want to be touched by the story, you just can't help it. The funny thing is, the author won't ever admit whether this really happened to him in his life or not. So, it leaves you believing that it did. He the story with eloquence.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Yet
Review: The Reader, by Bernard Schlink, was a moving book. When the aurthor describes the relationship of the two,Michael and Hanna, it makes you feel like you were there going through all that they did. The way he wrote this made me feel like I was in the shoes of one of the character's. I love how he runs through Michaels life at a great moving pace, and then when the problems occur he uses such great structure of how it was. Bernard Schlink uses so many emotions throughout this book you never get tired. When he starts the book with Michael getting sick and being helped by Hanna you never would think anything of anything. Then he goes and describes how they have a very intimate relationship as those of adults, with all the fights and emotions. When you think everything is good for the two he surprises you with the sudden disapperance of Hanna. I thought it was great how he could show how years later after alot of maturing Michael could still love a woman who walked out on him and was now being tried and convicted of murder years ago. At the end when Michael gives Hanna's money to the soul survivor of the murder at a concentration camp, he sends it in the name of Hanna who was sentenced to death for a crime that both she and Michael knew she would have prevented if able. I love how he uses a whirlwind of emotions and at the end gets you with the best kinds, heartbreak and ever lasting love.
Rating:
Summary: Predictable, Predictable, Predictable
Review: This was an extremely disappointing book. Not only were the characters flat and undeveloped, the plot was trite and contrived. Had the author spent less time asking one rhetorical question after another, and more time giving life to his characters, perhaps it would have been a better read. Instead he forces the readers to cover huge gaps in characterization because he is too busy trying to be philosphical. Not only that, but the story line is predictable from the beginning. It is obvious what Hannah is struggling with fromt the word go. And then to find out that that is her horrible secret, the thing that is going to send her to her grave in silence? Give me a break! I might have been able to sympathize with her, might, but because she lacks any depth as a character I cannot. Who is Hannah and what are her motives? A question that the author was too busy asking to answer. However, the worst part is the "romance" between the young boy and a woman over twice his age. It sounds like the fantasy of an adult man, looking back on his youth, not the beautiful reality of a loving adult relationship. It was extremely inappropriate. Had the roles been reversed, readers everywhere would have been screaming about the inappropriate nature of an older man with a minor, and yet review after review called this relationship "beautiful." I think disturbing is the word we are all looking for. I find it insulting to my intelligence that Oprah Winfrey recommends a novel, tells everyone how wonderful, powerful, moving and all that garbage, it is, and yet it turns out to be a flat attempt at trying to evoke emotion through a poorly written, base story. Just because a celebrity says a book (or anything else, for that matter) is good, doesn't make it good. Don't bother picking this one up. What a waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: The Reader- mixed feelings
Review: The Reader by Bernhard Schlink starts off with a young boy, Michael, falling in love with an older woman, Hanna, who is a worker on the streetcar. Their love is obviously controlled by Hanna and she often gets upset with him when she thinks that he will leave her. Hanna starts to do things that don't add up in Michael's mind. One day when he leaves her a note, she gets upset and claims that she never saw the note. I could tell that she was hiding a secret, but did not know exactly what it was. Hanna's character was not developed very well and even when I discovered her secret I did not feel that it explained her actions earlier in the book. This was a weakness in the book because I wanted to know what it was about Hanna that affected Michael's life so much. Michael's emotions were clear throughout the book, but I found myself wondering what it was about Hanna that made her so special to him. I felt a strong point in this book was reading Michael's changes in emotions and how Hanna completly changed his life forever. Another strong point of this book was that it showed a different view on the Holocaust. Hanna was a woman in charge of running the concentration camps and it lets the reader know that these people doing the disgusting crimes were actually people. My favorite part of this book was near the ending because I thought it was interesting to read about how Hanna and Michael had changed each other's lives. My least favorite part was the middle during the trial. I felt that some parts really dragged on. Overall I really enjoyed this book and it was an interesting look on the people involved in the Holocaust and a young love that kept on throughout the years.
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