Rating: 
Summary: Adolescent sex.
Review: This book touched me because it expressed the effects of an adolescent sexual relationship. I think that the ideas are devoid of any moral good, but that is not the point of the book. I felt myself revisiting my adolescent love, realizing how affected I am- even now. Our first love can enrapture us (even when unhealthy) to a point where they become a mental fixture- reminding us of everything new and innocent sexually. Hannah ruined this boys relationships with women for life. Being a man, I could remember the thoughts this boy felt, and I can't imagine what it would be like had my lover had the age and knowledge of men that Hannah had. What scars that would leave. This book reminds me of Lolita, but the sexes have changed. Both Nobakov and this author use characters that are haunted by there first love, depriving them of normal relationships in their adulthood. This book is important, but I felt the author was too reserved. The story is disturbing, so why not share the real hurt. I think the author could have been less detached.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligently written.
Review: Schlink casts out a line to the readers, using an intriguing thought provoking theme as bait. Once you've begun reading, it becomes almost impossible to stop. The story will move you into a mode of thinking unfamiliar in most American novels. Intelligently written, it challenges your morals, yet invites a particularly wonderful sense of commonality with life, love, and forgiveness.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligently written.
Review: Schlink casts out a line to the readers, using an intriguing thought provoking theme as bate. Once you've begun reading, it becomes almost impossible to stop. The story will move you into a mode of thinking unfamiliar in most American novels. Intelligently written, it challenges your morals yet invites a particularly wonderful sense of commonality with life, love, and forgiveness.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't get it?!
Review: I expected it to be riveting, but it wasn't, although I managed to finish it easily enough. (probably because it was realtively short)I still don't understand why she had an affair with a 15 year old boy. Nor why he never got over it. The book didn't educate me at all about the Holocaust like I hoped it would. I don't know why he wouldn't visit her in prison or why she killed herself. Seems to have a lot of missing links. Maybe I didn't care enough about the characters to think about these situations. This was is a take it or leave it kind of book.
Rating: 
Summary: This is Unberable Lightness
Review: This story, one which very well could have come form the imagination Milan Kundera, has the basic makings of a masterpiece. Unfortunately the author fails to make his point, can not offer the lyrical prose of a master and ends up instead with a trite, boring read. The characters are one dimensional and dull and the climax of the story leaves you wondering 'is that all?' Trust me stick with the proven master. Read Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being and leave The Reader where it belongs: on the bookshelf
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing in a Strange but Wonderful Way...
Review: When I first started reading this, I thought, "Oh My" But the more I read, the more gripped I was. This book is one that I could not put down until the end...
Rating: 
Summary: Thought provoking moral questions for each of us.
Review: The story is of a young boy in post war Germany, who has an affair with a woman twice his age. Later he learns of her guilt and subsequent life sentence in prison. He continues to read to her, (though recorded on cassette tapes), just as he did during his earlier affair. The biggest problem is dealing with his own guilt.This book will 'slap you up side of the head' to get your attention and will hold it until the last page. This ought to be used in our public school system and be required reading in both English and Ethics classes.
Rating:
Summary: Well-crafted suspense keeps readers interested to the end.
Review: What's the difference between a "romance" novel and a well-written story of people in loving and unloving situations? I believe it's the language and the images constructed for the reader. You know from the reviews that the Pilot is not all he seemed to be, and the immediate other life is not hard to imagine. What is especially well-drawn about this particular picture is the sincere emotion and the ways of dealing--or not dealing--with difficult revelations and complications. I began this just before a weekend, and found myself carrying it with me wherever I went. I enjoyed it thoroughly. For anyone who thinks they're secure in what they know about their partner.
Rating:
Summary: The book deals with the abuse of the author as a young boy.
Review: The author raises complex questions about guilt of the generation caught up in Nazi Germany who were faced with extremely difficult choices in a culture where the norm was to dehumanize and to perpetrate unspeakable crimes. Just as powerful as a subtext to this broader story, was the story of the author's personal relationship with Hanna, a sympathetic yet profoundly morally ambiguous older woman with whom he began a sexual relationship at age 15. As a result of this relationship, for which he was emotionally unprepared, and which ended traumatically with an abandonment, the author is unable to love another or sustain his later marriage. As the questions of guilt, knowledge, and responsibility were raised about the generation who lived during the holocaust, the layering of the same questions about Hanna's guilt and personal responsibility to the author add a dimension of intensity and ambiguity to the story. I found the book profoundly unsettling and thought provoking- the themes haunted me well after I finished reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent. Profound. A Classic.
Review: This isn't just a book to read. It's a book to feel. To respond to and then explore those responses. To me it wasn't just about the Holocaust or Hanna and Michael. It's about the deepest levels of human emotions and psychology. How we behave in difficult circumstances -- circumstances as horrible as the Holocaust and as basic as whether to intrude in another person's life. Its spare writing (and I assume strict editing by both the author and editor) focuses on events and feelings and a deep exploration and understanding of both. I will read it again. And I wish it had been there to read when I was in college -- although I probably would not have understood it as well. I can't criticize those who didn't like it. But we'll never have anything is common!
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