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. Sage Singer is a loner. 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. She has terrible scars on her face from a frightful accident, something she’s struggling t...

---Some spoilers but nothing major---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. 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.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 ba...

The Weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers. What is the point of trying to put down on paper emotions that are too complex, too huge, too overwhelming to be confined by an alphabet?Love isn't the only word that fails.Hate does, too.War.And hope. Oh, yes, hope.So you see, this is why I never told my stor

This book was ok. I have read pretty much everything Picoult has written, and I'm also a massive history buff, so I looked to this book with very high hopes.Don't get me wrong, I liked this book - for reasons outlined by many of the other reviewers on this site. So for something a little different, I thought I would provide a few suggestions I would have made if I was Picoult's editor.This is because I've started to notice in the last few books there are gaping continuity errors that reveal bigg...

Jodi Picoult is one of my adopted authors. This means I enjoy her books and want to share them with others so I donate the cost of each to our library. I get to read the book first, allowing the library, the community and myself to reap the benefits. It's definitely a win-win deal. I have not loved all of Picoult's books but have always respected the determination and marketing savvy she has shown since she began her career. So what did I think of her latest?The Storyteller is told in much the s...

Over the past year I have made it a point to focus on trimming the books on my to read list, giving me little wiggle room for much else. When a friend on the moderating team of retro chapter chicks here on goodreads mentioned wanted to read The Storyteller to finally get it off of her to read list, I said that I would join her. With family joining me over a holiday weekend, The Storyteller would be a perfect book, one that does not require much attention on my part and would still be enjoyable.

I do not read many of Jodi Picoult's books, mainly because a lot of them do not really appeal to me. I bought this book mainly because of the high ratings it was recieving on here. All i have to say is wow!!! I loved this book, at times i had to put it down to clear my head of the horrors i was reading. No matter how many books i have read, True or fiction based. The story of what happened to the Jews during the holocaust never fails to bring me to tears.Also reading the story from a young Germa...

So, to be honest I have been so inundated with research articles, that my free time reading choices have been, well, light. I have been taking on really easy reads due to the fact that my brain hurts.I thought, being Jodi Piccoult and all, that this book would fit into that category, however I was pleasantly surprised. This book was not only extremely well written, but thought provoking and moving. I never considered a book that took various perspectives of the Holocaust, well because I only bel...

10 STARS!!!!!!! This book wildly exceeded my expectations. This is one of the best book of the year, and easily the finest novel of Jodi Picoult's career. Just an extraordinary book. Words are inadequate.

Spoiler alert:If you read my reviews, then you know I'm a Jodi fan because I like her characters, controversial plots, and varied narrative techniques. At first, I was frustrated that Jodi chose to write a story on a topic that has been told so many times before (and with so many fiction and nonfiction books on the Holocaust, people will invariably compare this book to these others). I taught Wiesel's Night for 15 years and have read so many Holocaust books, that I fretted about this book when I...

When I think of Jodi Picoult I think of a hit or miss author. I have liked some books and others I felt were a waste of time but this one was very very good. I couldn't rate it 5 stars for the fact that she got repetitive and the story wouldn't move on in some spots but overall it was dark, sad but enjoyable.A baker, Sage, meets an old German man, Josef Weber, to find out he worked at Auschwitz during WWII and he isn't Josef Weber at all. They get to know one another but he has requested she do

I would give this 4 1/2 stars. This book had me thinking on so many different levels that it's hard for me to sum up my thoughts in a review. This quote sums up a lot of what this book had me thinking about - "not all Jews were victims and not all Germans were murderers." Reading Minka's story of the Holocaust really dives into that statement.A quote from the book, "I do believe in people. In their strength to help each other, and to thrive in spite of the odds." Reading this book made me wonder...

Characters:Sage: I actually really disliked Sage in the first part of this book. I'm not sure if this is intentional on the author's part, or if we were supposed to find her character sympathetic, but whatever the case, the result was that I just could not make myself like her. She seemed to me to be very self-effacing, in an artificial 'woe is me' kind of way, from how she felt about her scarred face (which she was really hung up on) to the reasons behind her sleeping with a married man. This l...

I have to say that I was seriously disappointed by this book. I have only read one other book by Piccoult, Saving Grace, and it was okay. When I read the brief summary of this book, NOWHERE did it mention the Holocaust! When I realized this is what the book was about, I was upset-- to the point that I almost didn't finish reading it. I am not anti-Jewish, anti-Holocaust or anything like that, but I do not want to read books about it. The images and words and descriptions are seared into my memor...