"The reader" might not be very interesting read in terms of language, but this particular review is on the premise which starts a great debate. It is very engaging because it is not just from a recent history, but it also raises some questions about choices for the future.
I think The reader, and Kafka on the shore (discussions on Eichmann), both of them discuss a very same topic at length - responsibility versus duty, which is a very thin line. In Reader [spoiler alert], Hanna works as a guard of Auschwitz and does not ever think that what can be wrong to guard and jail "prisoners" when it is her responsibility. [I definitely recommend watching the movie for that particular scene.] You take up a responsibility and are responsible for a work, it means you to do it out of your own will. But when you do it as a duty, you do it from a perspective of a moral obligation i.e. not necessarily your own self-interest. Throughout the book, Hannah believes she learned only one thing i.e. reading. What she was doing as a guard of Auschwitz was her responsibility. In the end, she kills herself with the realization of her duties, which she understands based on the books on concentration camps, or a larger view of the world she gets.
I think in today's world, that perspective is the most important one. You feel to be born for something you are best/good at (the way Eichmann was) and then if you pursue it with pure ignorance about the worldly duties you have, such histories would repeat - again. And again.
There is also a discussion where two people are discussing the morality of her stand. She is just one representative of many other people who used to work at Auschwitz (around 8000!), and in fact representative of all the ignorant (by choice or force). At a personal level, this also reflects a very recent debate which millennials go around and around - mission or passion.