The Storyteller
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4.4 • 3.1K Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
An astonishing novel about redemption and forgiveness from the “amazingly talented writer” (HuffPost) and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult.
Some stories live forever...
Sage Singer is a baker. 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. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t.
Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor. If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well. With 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. In this searingly honest novel, Jodi Picoult gracefully explores the lengths to which we will go in order to keep the past from dictating the future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Picoult (Change of Heart) reconfigures themes from her other bestsellers for her uneven new morality tale. Twenty-five-year-old reclusive baker Sage Singer befriends the elderly Josef Weber, who shares something shocking from his past and asks her to help him die, a request that pins Sage between morality and retribution. Sage, a Jew who now considers herself an atheist, begins to think more deeply about faith. Picoult examines the links between family identity, religion, humanity, and how it all figures in difficult decisions. The three-parter is narrated by several characters, including Sage's grandmother Minka, who survived the Holocaust. Snippets of a novel Minka wrote focus on a bloodthirsty beast, a metaphor for life in a death camp. Picoult's formulaic approach to Minka's accounts of the Holocaust is a cheap shot, but the author appreciates Sage's moral bind. Nearly half of the book is devoted to a verbose, sad recounting of Minka's time during the war, but the real conflict lies within Sage. That conflict, and the complexity of a character who discovers herself through the trials of Josef and Minka, is the book's saving grace.
Customer Reviews
App skipped ahead so missed part of story
Good read— very real, close-up view of the Holocaust, which was of course difficult to read. Great characterizations as always. Apple Books app forced me to miss a good chunk of the beginning of the story, and didn’t respond to my notification, so I’m disappointed in that. But the story itself, or what I read of it, was excellent. She always includes a moral element to consider, so reading her work is thought-provoking.
The Storyteller
One of her best! I would like to see a movie version of this.
Incredible book
I have just completed or inhaled Jodi's latest novel. There isn't a dull moment with this fast pace thriller of a novel. She has created something beautiful from a time in history that was incredibly ugly and unfair. Her prose was excellent as she weaves various stories within the novel. Even of if you can guess the ending, you won't. I hope Jodi is able to bring back Leo. I totally adored him. Also her description of the holocaust through Minka's character was so incredible that you would assume she was a fly on the wall. Brilliant!