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.
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