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for a book that is about women who committed war crimes during the holocaust, there isn't enough of her or the effects of her actions

Here's my problem with books like these: they have an interesting hook, a very promising storyline, and even juicy blurp, and then that's it — that's where all the work ends.

The Reader is about a boy and her fantasy obsession Hannah. This young boy who physically grows up and becomes a man is still a clingy confused teenager all his life. I don't blame him entirely for it. Our lad needs therapy, lots of it. He falls for a much older woman and has an affair with her only to find out a few years later that she is being prosecuted for her role in Nazi Germany. This “erotic clandestine affair” is neither racy not romantic; it is an older woman almost exploiting a teenager and his boy living out his teenage fantasy. If anyone views or appreciates this book as a romance, get help immediately! It raises compelling arguments about what constitutes a “fair” punishment for those who were part of the Third Reich, both the individuals directly involved with the SS, running the concentration camps, and also the population at large that stayed quiet and looked the other way. But that's it, it just teases these pointers and fizzles away into whinny complains of this man-child who misses Hannah and divorces his wife of five years and mother of child because “she doesn't smell like Hannah, feel like Hannah.” Oh, the heartbreak (-_-)

The potential of this book was endless. One of its central themes is that of illiteracy and how it affects one's life, and that is covered with some decency through the length of the book. But honestly, for a book about a woman and the turmoils of post-WW II Germany, there was not much of either of them.
The writing was windy and went on pointlessly in many chapters. The main chunks of the story — the difficult parts were handled in a loose, nonchalant fashion. Scenes that were of importance didn't feel impactful and the rest felt like nonstop rambling.