Michael Berg, 15, is on his way home from high school in post-World War II Germany when he becomes ill and is befriended by a woman who takes him home. When he recovers from hepatitis many weeks later, he dutifully takes the 40-year-old Hanna flowers in appreciation, and the two become lovers. The relationship, at first purely physical, deepens when Hanna takes an interest in the young man's education, insisting that he study hard and attend classes. Soon, meetings take on a more meaningful routine in which after lovemaking Michael reads aloud from the German classics. There are hints of Hanna's darker side: one inexplicable moment of violence over a minor misunderstanding, and the fact that the boy knows nothing of her life other than that she collects tickets on the streetcar. Content with their arrangement, Michael is only too willing to overlook Hanna's secrets. She leaves the city abruptly and mysteriously, and he does not see her again until, as a law student, he sits in on her case when she is being tried as a Nazi criminal.

Sent in the Wrap It Up Bookbox.

This book returned in the Wrap It Up Bookbox #1, thanks for including it. I have not read this book before and I am looking forward to reading it and then passing it on.

I found the book offered a unique glimpse of some areas of the Holocaust, but the characters within the story come across as detached and with no emotional depth. Both Hanna and Michael seem totally disconnected. I think because of this, I was never invested in either of them and the anticipated 'love story' of the first chapter falls totally flat. Also the callous unemotional way Hanna behaves towards her young lover lets you know she is clearly broken, and a tregedy is yet to come. Her sudden departure was almost a given, as to me they never bonded in any real way.

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