As for Hanna, I can understand that her secret was distressing, frustrating, and even embarrassing, but was it worth life in prison (which she deserved regardless of whether or not she defended herself)? From the way he tells the story, Hanna is sort of detached from things much of the time, so while she initiates their first sexual encounter, it seems as though Michael goes back time and again because he wants to, not because he’s coerced or anything like that. (She calls him “kid” for crying out loud!) Michael seems to understand at the time that their relationship isn’t quite right - he finds it difficult to talk about it even years after they separate and doesn’t tell his wife - but that could be because the adult Michael is telling the story, not an impulsive teenage boy with raging hormones. While I thought the book was well written, I had a hard time connecting with the characters - maybe because I find the idea of a sexual relationship between a teenage boy and a woman just a few years older than me extremely disturbing. The Reader is told by an adult Michael in the first person as he attempts to write the story of their relationship many years after the trial and its aftermath.

Michael discovers Hanna’s secret, the thing of which she is most ashamed, that prevents her from defending herself against murder charges and ties her and Michael together for the rest of their days.

This is where the story gets interesting. He sees her again when he is a college student and she is on trial for crimes committed during World War II as a Nazi concentration camp guard. Michael is hurt when Hanna leaves one day without a trace, and his feelings for her (was is love? lust? obsession?) and the time they spent together make it difficult for him to pursue other relationships. Michael spends much of his time visiting Hanna, trying to keep up with his school work, and hiding their relationship from family and friends. After he recovers, he goes to her apartment to thank her, thus beginning a relationship based on lust and a thirst for words, with Hanna forcing Michael to read to her before they make love. They meet when Michael falls ill with hepatitis, and Hanna helps him home. In The Reader, German writer Bernhard Schlink tells the story of Michael Berg, who at age 15 begins an intimate relationship with Hanna Schmitz, a 36-year-old streetcar conductor. When she had fallen asleep lying on me, and the saw in the yard was quiet, and a blackbird was singing as the color of things in the kitchen dimmed until nothing remained of them but lighter and darker shades of gray, I was completely happy. As the days grew longer, I read longer, so that I could be in bed with her in the twilight.

The reader book by bernhard schlink