Anya:

A contemporary classic in my view, particularly brilliant for the young adult reader who is moving into adult books and in the process of setting their own moral compass…"

Other Reviews:

‘A tender, horrifying novel that shows blazingly well how the Holocaust should be dealt with in fiction. A thriller, a love story and a deeply moving examination of a German conscience’ INDEPENDENT

A stunning examination of evil, this novel explores crime and punishment, love and guilt, dignity and degradation. * GOOD BOOK GUIDE *

[Schlink] explores the conflict between generations, wrestling with collective guilt and individual motivation. He examines the nature if understanding and tests the limits of forgiveness. He does these things with honesty, restraint and a moral precision both unsettling and rare. The result is as compelling as any thriller * The Times * Haunting and unforgettable * Literary Review *

For generations to come, people will be reading and marvelling over Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader * Evening Standard *

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink is the German novel I have been waiting for: it objectifies the Holocaust and legitimately makes all mankind responsible — Sir Peter Hall * Observer *

Leaps national boundaries and speaks straight to the heart . . . a moving, suggestive and ultimately hopeful work * New York Times *

Schlink’s extraordinary novel The Reader is a compelling meditation on the connections between Germany’s past and its present, dramatised with extreme emotional intelligence as the story of a relationship between the narrator and an older woman. It has won deserved praise across Europe for the tact and power with which it handles its material, both erotic and philosophical * Independent *

Deeply moving, sensitive enough to make me wince, a Holocaust novel, but light years away from the common run — Ruth Rendell * Sunday Telegraph *