Review: The Storyteller

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review: THE STORYTELLER by Jodi Picoult

THE STORYTELLER is a fine and compelling novel which is also tremendously heartwrenching in many aspects. It is not a novel to be taken lightly or readily dismissed, because once entered upon, this story will linger in your consciousness and heart. I admit to not having been a regular reader of Ms. Picoult, though I probably have been aware of each new release, and I'm certain I've read one or two of hers, some years ago. Now I have reason to find the ones I've missed (a lot of her novels) because as a novelist she is in a category all her own. Call her work “Women's Fiction” or “Psychologically Deep,” nevertheless she is in a class of her own.

THE STORYTELLER I expected to go in one particular direction, after the frequent mentions of the narrator Sage's ancestry and especially of her grandmother. However, the author “fooled” me, and the story went in an entirely new, and to me shocking, direction (I think many readers are shocked also). No doubt the direction Ms. Picoult took made the novel all that much stronger. It certainly “tore my heart out.” But all is not lost, and there are positives here, and good people as well. I give this a 5-star rating (I'd give it 12 stars if I could).

(Personal Aside): My 19-year-old granddaughter, who had been an avid reader until a couple of years ago, recently took up reading again. The book she started with was a memoir focusing on the Holocaust and its aftermath. Shocking? Yes, but she loved the book, so I've suggested THE LAST WITNESS by Jerry Amernic and THE STORYTELLER by Jodi Picoult, both fine novels dealing with this topic.)

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