The Storyteller By Jodi Picoult

[amazon_link id=”1444766635″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]”The Storyteller” is the latest book by bestselling author, Jodi Picoult.

Sage Singer is a cripplingly shy baker in New Hampshire, suffocated by a guilty secret, who spends her nights baking her wonderful breads, her days sleeping, her evenings at grief therapy sessions and any time left with her unsuitable married boyfriend.

It’s not a perfect life. Throughout the therapy session, she meets ninety-five year old Josef Weber. He seems to be a sweet, funny generous old man but after a couple of weeks of spending time together, he asks Sage to help him die. He has had enough of trying to make up for his past and says he is looking for redemption. He used to be an SS commandant at a concentration camp during the Second World War and his sins are too heavy to carry any longer. This is not perfect either. Sage’s family are Jewish and her grandmother has lived through the appalling heartache and misery at Auschwitz.

Shocked, scared and outraged, Sage goes looking for help and finds Leo Stein, a Nazi hunter from the US Department of Justice. As Leo investigates Josef’s story, Sage investigates her grandmothers and discovers a deeply emotional jigsaw of family history. She also discovers the story that Minka made up for the concentration camp commandant, a story that may have just kept her alive.

On the days leading up to me, first starting ‘The Storyteller’ there was so much excitement and anticipation on Twitter, with hashtag #thestoryteller being used flat-out, so I was quite enthusiastic to get stuck in.

Settling into the book, I was drawn into the reclusive life of young baker, Sage, scarred from a car accident, she keeps herself hidden from the world, refusing to make eye-contact, she fears that she will scare people away, famous for her baking in Our Daily Bread, she also worries that no-one will ever love her so she conducts an illicit affair with an married man. Dealing with the grief of her mother’s death, Sage attends a grief counselling group and it’s through this group that she meets and befriends elderly widower Josef, who approaches her with an unlikely request.

Set partly in Europe during Second World War, it gives the insight from both sides of the war, the innocent Jew and the brain-washed SS soldier. Whilst, also set in the present, it shows the consequences of the war and off the millions that suffered. As the story is seen through the perspective of multiple characters, Jodi has thoughtfully written the characters in different fonts, making it easier to follow the flow of the story and not to get confused between characters.

The cast of the story, were a warm empathetic bunch of people, that made for light reading especially with the hard topic of the story. My favourite characters were Sage and her grandmother Minka, both were riveting and interesting characters, that were alike in so many ways, shy and secretive, they were mirror images of one another. Another wonderful element of the story, was the inclusion of the story that Minka wrote during the Second World War, a beautiful tale of love and fantasy and was certainly reminiscent of a Grimm fairy tale, it provided a sense of escapism for the young girl.

“The Storyteller” was an enchanting story that will have you gripped from the very start. It’s a story of love, guilt, heartbreak and betrayal. Filled with graphic and disturbing scenes of torture and hardship, this tale of murder does not make for easy reading, I occasionally found myself wincing at the vivid descriptions of abuse and even found myself, having to put the book down and walk away for a brief while. As a person who had a keen interest in the Second World War and German History, I thought the book was one of most descriptive and calculated accounts of the most horrific mass genocide that has ever happened. A wonderfully researched book, the storyteller” is a poignant story that will captivate the hardest of hearts, as an array of emotions will race you, from fear to horror this story is an addictive read and an absolute must read of 2013, if there is one book you have to read this year, then make sure it is “The Storyteller”

You can buy [amazon_link id=”1444766635″ target=”_blank” ] The Storyteller on Amazon [/amazon_link] and other good bookshops.