The Reader is interesting to say the least. The story is of a fifteen year old boy who is in a relationship with a thirty year old woman. That’s a little strange. They develop a purely sexual relationship and she ends up abusing him but he just takes it. Eventually, he sees her less and less because he starts hanging out with his high school friends more and more—like every fifteen year old kid should. Then, out of nowhere she disappears. Michael obviously thinks it’s his fault but we never really find out. He continues dating other women but she always comes to mind. I think that this is fair because she took his virginity and also was probably his first love. I found the first part of the book rather boring. It’s pretty much the same thing going on over and over again. However, I enjoy how Bernhard Schlink describes every scene and place that Michael goes to and experiences. Michael himself is a very interesting character. He is blatant and does not really mix his thoughts into his narration of events, he simply says what he was feeling and what was happening at that moment. I think that in the next two parts the story will develop more and become more interesting. This book reminds me of Sense of an Ending because the narrator is talking about a relationship in the past tense. Both narrators analyze their respective relationships and find the faults in it. This makes me imagine that the next two parts of The Reader will be very similar to that of Sense of an Ending. I’m interested to see where this story goes and what we learn about Michael Berg and possibly Hanna Schmitz.
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