Book Review: The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (no spoilers)

Book: The Storyteller
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publication: February 26, 2013
Source: Local Library
Rating: 5/5 Stars












Summary (from goodreads):

Sage Singer befriends an old man who's particularly beloved in her community. Josef Weber is everyone's favorite retired teacher and Little League coach. They strike up a friendship at the bakery where Sage works. One day he asks Sage for a favor: to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses…and then he confesses his darkest secret - he deserves to die, because he was a Nazi SS guard. Complicating the matter? Sage's grandmother is a Holocaust survivor.

 What do you do when evil lives next door? Can someone who's committed a truly heinous act ever atone for it with subsequent good behavior? Should you offer forgiveness to someone if you aren't the party who was wronged? And most of all - if Sage even considers his request - is it murder, or justice?

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My Thoughts:

Jodi Picoult is the ultimate storyteller. If you haven't read Jodi Picoult's newest novel what are you doing with your life? Jodi Picoult was able to take a very serious topic in this case WWII and turn it into a novel I was interested in. I would sit and read this book for long periods of time and when I reached the last page I was ready for the novel to be over.

Before I began this novel I really thought its main theme would be murder, but murder was an underlying theme while WWII took center stage. From the summary you may also think this book is about Sage Singer and Josef Weber and although it is about them it is so much more about Sage's grandmother. Sage's grandmother Minka who is a WWII survivor. She went through a lot surviving through several concentration camps such as Auschwitz. This book is Minka's story and all the survivors of the holocaust movement. The only way we are going to keep the holocaust as history is by telling these people's story. We can't let people forget about the holocaust and the only way people are going to remember is through survivor's story. Almost everybody alive during WWII is gone now, but there relative such as Sage in this novel life on.

Jodi Picoult writing is brilliant and the emotions in this book are so raw it takes you back to a different time and you feel like you are next to the characters. There are times I felt like I felt everything Minka went through and no matter how many times I read a WWII novel I will always feel shock about what those people were capable of.

The ending was very unexpected as most Jodi Picoult endings are. I watched the characters of this novel change so much throughout the novel. Some for the good others for the better. This book was mainly about lose with an underlying theme of love, heartache, and the difference between right and wrong. What lengths would you go to protect your family? That is the question Jodi Picoult asks.

Overall I fell in love with this novel and I have not read a book this quickly in a while. I want to see this book being read for generations because WWII is an embrassing, but important part of our history just as slavery is an embrassing, but important part of U.S. history. Both desevered to be remembered no matter how hard they are to swallow and I believe that fully. I believe things shouldn't be forgotten just because we don't like what happened during that period of time. Go read this book it is so much more than a nonfiction novel of world war 2. It is a well researched fiction novel with a story based to educate people on what happened. I think that is what makes this novel unique. Have I mentioned I love Jodi Picoult?  The Storyteller is a great new addition to the Jodi Picoult collection.

Thanks for reading and go read this book


Rachael