The Reader

Bought the book after saw the movie preview starring Kate Winslet.

The book has 3 parts showing the time difference where the narrator of the book, Micheal Berg, lived his life in German in the 1940s.

Part 1 we see Micheal Berg as a young teenager at 15 years old when he first met Hanna Schmitz in Part 1. One day he was sick and vomitted half way through on the way home and Hanna Schmitz helped him and sending him back. As a token of appreciation, Micheal Berg bought some flowers and visited Hanna Schmitz at her home. One thing lead to another and they ended up having sex many many times and everytime, Hanna Schmitz will request Micheal Berg to read to her before allowing him the sex. At the end of Part 1, Hanna Schmitz left Micheal Berg and the town they lived in without any notice.

In Part 2, Micheal Berg was a law student and bumped into Hanna Schmitz in a trial where she was accused of letting the prisoners died in a fire in a concentration camp. Micheal Berg was at first confused on why Hanna Schmitz refused to defend herself from all the accusation that was thrown at her. But in the end he understood why and wondered how could it be worthwhile to hide a secret that Hanna Schmitz guarded with her life that she considered was more shameful than murder itself. Hanna Schmitz was given life imprisonment for the deeds she did during the Holocaust period.

In Part 3, we read about Micheal Berg life as an adult, where he had a wife and kid and he was divorced after a few years. And in we also read about how his life was affected from the younger years where he spent his growing up years with Hanna Schmitz. Fast forward to 18 years later, Hanna Schmitz was granted parole, and since Micheal Berg had a one way communication by sending her tapes of books he read over the years, he was the person to contact when she was about to release from prison. However, he only managed to see her once before she was released from prison as she chosen another path to release herself from the world.

The reader's review:
The whole sex scenes in Part 1 was just to emphasis how close their relationship was. In part 2, the whole court drama didn't show as much as what was expected about how the Germans tortured the Jews during the Holocaust period. In part 3, how Micheal Berg started to communicated with Hanna Schmitz and the outcome of the communication was truly heartfelt.

Overall:
3.5 stars rating (out of 5 stars)