A review by the_modernreader
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

challenging dark emotional slow-paced

4.0

Coming into this book, I thought the story was going to be about the relationship between a much younger Micheal and an older Hanna. I thought the book would lead me to understand why and witness the influence of this relationship on Micheal’s agency as an adult. But the book sets out to do more than just that. When we get to the second part of the book, it feels completely brand new. I didn’t think eroticism could be used to hold a conversation about the pains of the Holocaust. We taken through a moment in the genocide and there’s talk on the interplay of guilt and shame. It’s almost as if I got 2 books when I was expecting just 1. It took me 2 weeks to get through it once we moved subject matter: from paedophilia to genocide. In the end I am still trying to understand why Hanna and Micheal had to happen…
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