11/11/2023 0 Comments The storytellers secret![]() There's nothing technically wrong with those names except that they serve no purpose in the book whatsoever and stick out like a sore thumb.Īll the side-characters were unrealistic and absolutely weird, again, for no reason other than grabbing undue attention. Yadda yadda yadda.Īnother useless detail that is hard to ignore - Sage's sisters are called Pepper and Saffron. There is a ton of absolutely pointless information. Or rather, undue attention was given to trivial plot-points. It did not get the attention it deserved. And yet, the Holocaust angle always felt secondary to me. I'll give credit where it's deserved - Jodi Picoult has researched the whole thing extremely well. In fact, the best parts are the flash-backs from WW2. I'm not saying that The Storyteller doesn't talk about the Holocaust or doesn't do justice to it. Had I not read the blurb, I would have assumed that I was reading one of those chick-lit stories where an insecure girl with too much emotional baggage meets a guy who loves her for who she is.Ĥ00 pages later, that is EXACTLY what The Storyteller turned out to be. Following an accident that maimed half her face, Sage suffers from very low self-esteem, lives and works like a recluse and settles for being some guy's mistress. ![]() The first few chapters of The Storyteller introduce us to Sage Singer - a twenty-something baker who is struggling with scars both emotional and physical. I wonder what I would have done? Thank you Jodi Picoult, for making me think. And yet Jodi Picoult’s arresting and easy style of writing means the book will keep you riveted and make you think in the end. This is not an easy book to read, simply from the subject matter. It adds to the richness of the book, and it weaves the story of her grandmother and Joseph Weber together. Woven through Jodi Picoult’s book is a fable, as it were, of fiction imitating life – or is it life imitating fiction? It’s told by Sage’s grandmother, and the ending is both confronting and unusual. So is it worth the angst, the reader pain? Yes it is. We must not forget them, and we must learn from the mistakes of history, even if this means we metaphorically ‘gird our loins’ to read on, saddened and horrified and, yes, sickened at times. It is a privilege to read it an honour to remember those whose lives were abruptly terminated in such terrible circumstances. You might think that this is ‘just’ another book about the Holocaust, but it isn’t. His story – and Sage’s grandmother’s story, a survivor of Auschwitz – are confronting and shocking. He can’t live with the memories of what he’s done in the past. And then, in a completely unexpected moment, Joseph asks Sage to kill him. Over time an unlikely friendship grows between her and an elderly customer in the store – Joseph Weber. ![]() Throughout the book I could almost smell Sage’s breads, the beautiful breads taught to her by her Jewish grandmother – and desperately wanted to taste them. She has terrible scars on her face from a frightful accident, something she’s struggling to cope with – psychologically as well as physically – every day of her life. She works as a baker through the night, only befriending a few people, hardly ever talking to the customers, always staying behind the scenes in the store where she works. Jodi Picoult has tackled yet another ‘big issue’ (forgiveness) in The Storyteller, but as in all her books things are a little more complicated than usual, and there’s her wow-didn’t-see-that-coming twist as well. In this searingly honest novel, Jodi Picoult gracefully explores the lengths we will go in order to protect our families and to keep the past from dictating the future When does a moral choice become a moral imperative? And where does one draw the line between punishment and justice, forgiveness and mercy? With her own identity suddenly challenged, and the integrity of the closest friend she’s ever had clouded, Sage begins to question the assumptions and expectations she’s made about her life and her family. If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well. ![]() Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t, and they become companions.Įverything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret-one that nobody else in town would ever suspect-and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. ![]()
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