Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

I figured out what was going to happen before it did, something I usually hold against a book but don't in this case.

If I tell you this book is about a baker, a Holocaust survivor, a 95 year old Nazi soldier living in the US and hiding in plain sight and vampires you would probably roll your eyes and say thanks but no thanks, heck I almost did. Doing that would be a big mistake.

Since this is a Jodi Picoult book there is some sort of legal drama involved but this time it isn't the main focus.

Josef tells Sage his deep dark secret and asks of her something she isn't sure she can or wants to do. She just wants to spend her time hiding what she thinks is her hideous face away from the world and just keep baking. Leo is a Department of Justice lawyer who spends his time hunting Nazi war criminals. Mary is an ex-Nun who owns the shop Sage bakes for and Rocco is the guy who works the counter and only speaks in Haiku. And then there is Minka, Sage's grandma who is a Holocaust survivor. They are quite a cast and they make for an amazing foundation for this story.

Can you forgive someone who did something so horrible that they could be called monster? Can you forgive someone on behalf of others? Does it matter of you are forgiven by others if you can never forgive yourself? Those are some of the questions raised in this story.

While I figured it out before the reveal at the end, there is a bit of a surprising twist to the story and figuring it out didn't ruin the experience for me.

I have real just about every book Picoult has written and really enjoyed them all, well all except Songs of the Humpback Whale which was horrible, and The Storyteller was my favorite.

(finished June 11, 2013)

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