Initial Reaction to The Reader

I could sit here and write about how the extreme detail and graphic nature of Bernhard Schlink's writing took me by surprise, but I won't. After the fair warning in class that the novel would be of a graphic nature I was ready to encounter something really weird and something I thought I wouldn't like at all. Instead, I found a novel that I think I actually like.
Schlink's manner of writing uses an immense amount of detail. To say the author uses a lot of detail isn't even doing it justice. Schlink includes descriptions so exact that the reader is able to perfectly imaine where the characters are at any given time. Each page is filled with vivid imagery and a decryption of even the smallest of details. One part that I particularly loved was when Schlink described the passing of an hour by the number of times the clock ticked before the hand turned. A small description of that sort is able to really have the reader understand how the main character felt when he waited for this woman for so long.
Though most people are probably thinking that the relationship between Hanna and the main character is extremely weird and uncomfortable for all, I think Schlink depicts there relationship in a particularly good way. He chose not to make the woman out to be this little girl seduced by some random man or even a woman seducing someone far younger than her. It seems as if when authors chose to have such a relationship, someone is always taking advantage of the other. Nevertheless, in The Reader, neither seems to be taking advantage of the other. It honestly seems to be a really mutual relationship. It was also interesting to see that the author chose to have Hanna enforce that Michael go through with his schoolwork. While many would probably be quick to describe Hanna as a sick woman taking advantage of a little boy, she seems to actually have his best interest in mind in regards to school.