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Friday, September 4, 2009

Book Review: The Reader (Bernhard Schlink)


What to say about "The Reader?" Well I gave it 3 Stars I found it, easy to read at a mere 218 pages and the chapters were short and simple. Although (yes there is a but lol) the book (to me) seemed to drag slightly in the middle and maybe this is because when it comes to books that have trials and legal wording etc..it tends to lose me when it gets too involved with the terminalogy.

The book is about a 15 year old boy who has an affair with an older woman (precisely 22 years older) after falling ill, the woman although vanishes amid their relationship and isn't heard from until numerous years later. It's not until the boy is in his twenties that he sees the woman again not in an intimate matter but standing a trial for Nazi war crimes (as the boy is a law student standing in on the trial).

Now I can't say I am an oprah fan and was kinda leery after finding out it was one of her book club reads but went on to finish reading it none the less. I don't know if I was the only one who felt this way ...but I felt the love between the boy and woman (if love is what you would call it) happened really soon too soon for me to believe (if that makes sense) but then I reminded myself again of course it had to be since it's only 218 pages! lol With this is mind I questioned myself that maybe "love" or what we think is "love" really does happen that fast when one partner is soo much younger than the other meaing ie: 15 year old boys hormones run amok and therefore any older woman who initiates a spark of interest or persuades a boy into a sexually related affair, maybe that in fact does happen quite quickly.

Who knows but those who have been in this sort of love affair or part of one . As side from that along the trial of this book (middle of the book) I found myself being able to set it down and could have more than likely forgotten about it at that point, but told myself its such a fast/small read that i should give it the chance and finish it. The ending to me got better, and kept me interested til i finally did finished the book. All in all I give the book 3 out of 5 stars cause out of everything it was a decent read just not extremely exceptional.

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