The Reader

Rating:
Summary: Confused Reaction
Review: I was really excited to read this book, and the writing was amazing. I read it all in one sitting but mostly because I was waiting for it to get good. After I read the book I was confused as to weather or not I liked it, I loved the way he wrote, the imagery and sybolism, but the plot itself was lacking.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Imagery
Review: The beautiful prose in this book really helped create vivid and believeable images in the reader's mind- I couldn't stop reading once I started- the author takes you on a journey through many moving and personal memeories, and you are engaged right from the first sentence...

Rating:
Summary: short but long read
Review: Everyone suggested that it was a real quick read-short in length and you can't put it down. Well, I had a hard time picking it UP!!! I despised Hanna even before her past was exposed. The book was hard to get through but I kept hoping it would get better but it didn't. I found it very disappointing!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: BORING!!!
Review: DON'T WASTE ANYTIME ON THIS BOOK. I COULD BARELY GET THRU IT. SOMEHOW I MANAGED TO FINISH IT SO I WOULDN'T FEEL LIKE I HAD WASTED MONEY BUYING IT.

Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking Read!!!!
Review: I read the book in 4 hours. I'm not trying to say it was an easy read, but wow, what an interesting one at that. In the beginning, I was a bit embarrassed at the fact that my nana was the one who recommended it to me. I didn't really see the importance at first of the author's need to be so specific with their sexual encounters. But as I read on, towards the end, I realized just how important it was that he included those details for his readers in order to understand the effect Hannah had on Michael. An effect that never escaped him. I'm sure glad nana didn't let her delicate side interfere with her recommendation of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: Beautifully written book. Compelling characters. Simple stark language. It's an Escher drawing - Hannah as prison guard denying her prisoners freedom and life; the narrator as prison guard denying Hannah her freedom and life.

Rating:
Summary: Definately Worth Reading
Review: A very strange story of a very unlikely couple. I liked Hanna for about 30 seconds when she helped the very young Michael up onto his feet after he had fallen ill. But I felt that here was a very DARK woman even before I knew her past. She was tragic as were her deeds. I just could not understand Michael's passion for this woman. The book was well written, well developed characters, but a very sad story for both of these two people.

Rating:
Summary: a story that stays with you
Review: I found "The Reader" to be a wonderful surprise story. I didn't like Hanna but I learned a lot about what it meant to be German during WWII. I agree with the reviewer who said that her inability to read was of course obvious, indeed that was not the "big secret" of the story. I enhjoyed this book much, much more than Memoirs of a Geisha.

Rating:
Summary: The main theme is highly thought provoking.
Review: I loved the book. Reading this book makes one take a serious look into their heart.A rape is committed, yet this book is not about sex, love or rejection. It deals with highly charged emotional and practical issues which is often difficult to understand or analize.

Rating:
Summary: Challenging and intimate exploration of morality
Review: "The Reader" feels like a Kubrick film - clinical and detached yet intimate and profoundly affecting. The sparse prose and rapid development allow for a quick read. Like many good novels, you spend much less time reading it than you do thinking about it afterward.