Rating: 
Summary: A German Lolita?
Review: The author's spare style is reminscent of Camus. He doesn't need to overwrite to create a lot of ambience and intense emotion. At first, I was worried that he would dwell on the love affair between the 15 year old Michael and Hanna. But, it turns out that those descriptions are among the best in the novel and their affair somehow never touches the sordid depths of Lolita's life. The narrator spends his whole life trying to equal or surpass this first and most pure of his relationships. I enjoyed how the narrator described his new manner with girls his age thanks to his experiences with Hanna. I agree with other readers below that the so called "secret" was way too obvious. I figured it out right after Michael left her the note, but then thought to myself, but how could that account for all her strangeness? I must say that the twists the novel takes make it a very interesting novel -- we pass through WWII and the Holocaust, but in a much different manner than we normally do in this type of genre. It's quite a short book (took maybe 2 hours to read), but because of the compelling narrator and the lean prose, I really enjoyed it. It's a cerebral book -- we feel the narrator's pain as he tries to get over his early affair and regroup -- whether he ever gets it together or not I will leave as a surprise.
Rating: 
Summary: haunting...
Review: WOW. What an interesting book. Don't you just love twists at the end of a story? Well, you should, and you should also read this book. This story is downright superb. I suggest reading this one of a kind, gripping, fantastic book. You'll LOVE it!
Rating: 
Summary: Simplistic Rather Than Simple
Review: ... This is a simplistic work, in terms of its so-called "style" (there is none), its themes (treated much more forcefully by hundreds of other writers, but particularly by Hannah Arendt and Elie Wiesel), its outlook (provincial, bordering on ignorant), its insights (along the lines of Jack Handy's "Deep Thoughts" on Saturday Night Live) and its tone (deaf). I read this work through because I couldn't believe that George Steiner would have his name attached to a second-rate book. I was not rewarded for my efforts. Maybe Schlink is a personal friend of Steiner's for I can't for the life of me see how anyone of his literary reputation would suggest that The Reader should be "Read...and then Read again." This is probably the most singularly colorless, dull exercise in language that I've come across. And please don't bring up how that's part of the author's intent, that it's supposed to be some kind of minimalist treatment a la Raymond Carver, or that Schlink chose stark prose to portray a stark subject. It's simply a lack of imagination on the author's part. He hasn't the imaginative power to construct one meaningful metaphor or image. At times, the novel sinks beneath the weight of its banalities to new lows in fiction, as when the author delivers the following "deep thought:" "When an airplane's engines fail, it is not the end of the flight. Airplanes don't fall out of the sky like stones. They glide on, the enormous multi-engined passenger jet, for thirty, forty-five minutes, only to smash themselves up when they attempt a landing. The passengers don't notice a thing. Flying feels the same, whether the engines are working or not....Maybe the very quietness of the flight is appealing to the passsengers." Really? No one would notice if all the engines failed for forty-five happy, carefree minutes? How many martinis does this guy down on a given trip? The reaction to this book actually frightens me to some extent. So many readers here appear to blithely regard it as some kind of erotic turn-on, a love story infused with serious meditations on the after-effects of the Holocaust. All I noticed was that a 15-year old boy was seduced by a 30+ streetcar conductor (what happened to Frau Schmitz' husband, by the way?), they had a sordid and colorless affair, she dissappeared and then shows up years later in a war-trial. ... While the court proceedings are occuring, the narrator (Michael Berg, aka Schlink) tells us he has erotic dreams about Hanna dressed up in her SS uniform: "The worst were the dreams in which a hard, imperious, cruel Hanna aroused me sexually; I woke from them full of longing and rage. And full of fear about who I really was." If you are the sort of reader who finds German women in SS costumes exciting, I suggest you rent a Video of "Ursa, She-Wolf of the SS." I will give Schlink credit for enough self-awareness to admit in the next paragraph that "I knew my fantasized images were poor cliches." Unfortunately, the same can be said for 99% of this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Almost
Review: This book was recommended to me as an "incredible, must read." While the story was poignant it did not reach the full maturity that I expected. There was so much of Hannah that I felt I didn't know and wanted to know about. The prose is lovely and the story, while complicated, is entirely understandable. It just stopped short of being really good.
Rating:
Summary: Stirs your Mind
Review: The Reader is not about the Holocaust or Jews or the Nazis or the wars. It's about love. The life of young Michael Berg is changed forever when he fell into the arms of Hanna Schmitz, a woman more than a decade older than himself. When she left him, he withdrew into his own self, developed a hardness in himself, presumably to protect himself from further hurt and later compared all his other lovers to his first one, Hanna. Just how much of ourselves do we see in Michael? How many of us are withholding ourselves, immersing our senses into work to numb ourselves and to ease the hurt that's ever ready to pounce on us when we let our guard down for just a little? Bernhard Schlink painted a dark picture of love went wrong; a life whose happiness had been snatched away because one had closed himself up for too long and avoided what his heart told him for fear of pain. If there's one thing to learn from The Reader, it's to face up to the hurt and grow from it, which Michael had clearly failed. Not a totally easy book to read but the words therein contained a valuable lesson that we should seek to understand.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone should read this book!
Review: This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is right up there with the Catcher and The Rye. I even had my highlighter out so I could mark the enteries that I wanted to come back to. Once I finished it I picked it up and read it again. Superb
Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile read
Review: This book is more about relationship and the perculiarities of the human mind than it is about the Holocaust or Jews. Schlink's observations about behavior and your emotions when passion is involved are often deadly accurate. The plot is rather unique, and his descriptions and observations of the events leave no doubt that at least portions of this story really occurred. The author's prose is clear and concise, no wasted words or excessive imagery, which on occasion wouldn't have been a bad thing. Hanna is a peculiar character, sometimes sad, at other times frustrating and impossible to figure out. Having been on the same end of a May-December romance, I can relate to much of Schlink's confusions and desires as he speaks of Hanna. He raises some questions and issues to which he gives no answer, but all things considered, a fine novel. One thing I very much liked is that the events and outcomes were generally logical and the turning of events believable.
Rating:
Summary: swift and entrancing
Review: I found 'The Reader' to be very addictive and quick. Before I knew it, I was well into the book. While the story is on some levels possibly disturbing, I found the overall effect to be more thought provoking. The writing is very economical and to the point. It conjures up images and feelings of love and lost and insecurity and wonder that everyone can relate to and grasp. In all it is a sombering tale of human nature that sticks in your head well after you've put the book down. I enjoyed it very very much.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: "The Reader" was a partially interesting book. I appreciated the spare prose, but it fell slack too often (many "I don't remember" phrases) and weakened the novel. Examples of spare prose that sustain tension throughout the story are "The Retreat" by Aharon Appelfeld (deals with the beginnings of the Holocaust) and "The Liar" by Martin Hansen (different subject matter, but a "dark secret" theme). The early relationship between the boy and Hannah was the best part of the book. If the rest of the story had been as detailed and taut, the impact would have been much stronger. Instead, the obviousness of the secret and the glosses over key events blurred other sections. I did like the ending's restraint; neat explanations or happy endings would have completely belied all that came before.
Rating:
Summary: A "modern" approach to Holocaust
Review: Being in my end 20s and German at the same time I found this book a very valuable and new approach to the Holocaust history. It reflects emotions and feelings of our young German generation that is still struggeling with the history of their parents/grandparents. Schlink is able to look at the history from a different angle with a modern approach, bringing together the young generation that is not to blame with the generation that is to be hold responsible. Presenting those two generations in a couple of lovers and adding an age difference of the "other" way (the man being much younger than the women) makes this book remarkable, rich in diversity and definetly worth reading.
| 
