The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

It has been a long time since a book grabbed me by the collar and would not let go until I read it all. RIGHT! NOW!  This is exactly what The Storyteller did to me.  I bought the book having read nothing simply because I adore this author.  She is a phenomenal writer.  Her style consists of writing the story in first person, but as the story progresses, you see the first person point of view from all the main characters.   So, you get to know all the players from inside their heads.  She is also kind enough to change the typeface for each character, though the voice given to each character leaves no confusion who is telling the story at any given point.  And just when it is all coming together she spins you around with something you never saw coming and you lose your breath and you are reeling and it all means so much more than you ever imagined it would.  I Promise.

While fiction, Jodi's books are extremely well researched and will teach you something and they will take you into moral dilemmas that you didn't think you ever wanted to think about.  In the end, you will come out knowing a little more about yourself.  I cannot read two of her books in a row because they are heavy and they make me think so much, I am kind of exhausted when I finish one.   Not a bad exhausted like you take the kids to Target and one has a meltdown over a Lego set and the other one wets their pants and you soon figure out they both have that stomach bug that has been going around....and you do too.   Nope, it is a good exhausted.  Like after a nice workout (Now, I am writing fiction because I cannot remember what that feels like!)

Anyway, The Story Teller is about a young woman named Sage grieving the loss of her mother, Sage's Jewish grandmother Minka, and Josef, who Sage meets at her grief group.  Oh, Sage is a baker.   There is lots of talk about bread.  Lots.  It will make you twitch for some carbs.  Another itty bitty thing: Sage's grandma is a Holocaust survivor.  Her story is amazing.  It was incredibly hard to read because her character is so real, yet I could not put it down.  (The last book I read and felt like this- also highly recommended by me--was Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken.  It was a NON fiction about a Louis Zamperini, survivor of a Japanese POW camp in, yep, WW2.)

So the moral of this post is, GO READ THE STORYTELLER. NOW!  GO! If not that one, I suggest Change of Heart, My Sister's Keeper (PLEASE don't watch the movie- it's crap),  Plain Truth, or Handle With Care, just a few of my other Picoult favorites.

Happy Reading!