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The Reader by Bernhard Schlink book cover

The Reader

Bernhard Schlink • 1995

Devastation Rating

Emotionally Ruined
love war historical literary fiction injustice
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Our Take

A boy reads to a woman he loves and years later discovers what she did in the war. Neither love nor guilt resolves itself into anything clean. Schlink's Germany is trapped in its own legacy, and Michael is trapped inside a love he can neither defend nor discard.

Appears In

► Dark Historical Fiction — The Books History Forgot ► Espionage — When Loyalty Becomes a Trap ► WWII Civilian Lives — The War That Happened at Home ► Censorship and Intellectual Freedom — What Burns When Books Burn ► Moral Courage and Its Failure — When Watching Is the Crime

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