The Storyteller

by Jodi Picoult

[Leah]

I love Jodi Picoult, I love the fact that she takes a plot that’s perhaps a bit controversial and she makes it into something you really want to read. Something you really care about. I look forward to every new release, and I’ve loved her past 5 or so releases. When I heard about The Storyteller, I was so interested to read it. I loved the sound of it, I adored the cover (it’s my favourite Jodi Picoult cover, it’s so pretty!) and when I received a proof copy, I nearly died of happiness. I couldn’t wait to read it, and it blew me away. It blows my mind that she continues to shock and delight me. The Storyteller really has taken Jodi Picoult to a whole new level and it very much her best novel to date.

I’ll be honest, The Storyteller’s plot isn’t something I’m at all familiar with – history wasn’t my strong suit at school and I don’t remember ever being taught about the Holocaust. I know about it, vaguely, but I will admit to being mostly ignorant about that time and about what happened. (I very much find that you don’t need school to learn these things, picking up a Jodi Picoult will tell you most of what you need to know about major life events, trust me.) But it’s fair to say that now I am fully versed in the events of the Holocaust and in a way I’m pretty glad I’ve only just learnt the full extent of it now, because it’s a lot to take in. I never would have appreciated it as a teenager, because it is truly unbelievable that this was allowed to happen, that so many Jewish people died, it’s just really, really, really horrific and it seems somewhat unreal.

I generally don’t find books hard to read, I can stomach most things – I read Chick Lit, so it’s not as if you regularly come across such tragic topics but I found it difficult at times to read The Storyteller. It was so compelling, so hard to put down, but it was also on the flipside so hard to read. It was hard to hear Josef’s account of the deaths on his hands, it was hard to read Minka’s tale of what it was to be a Jew during the Holocaust and to read about how horribly awful her life was at Auschwitz, and before that in the ghettos. I did struggle a bit to get into Minka’s tale, which takes up the main part of the book and is definitely the crux of the story, but once everything started happening and Minka and her family were moved into the Ghetto, it really came to life and it was so, so horrible to read about what was happening. This is a novel that’s most definitely reliant on its plot, although I will admit I loved Sage as a character, along with Leo, but mostly, I was just interested in learning more about Minka’s life, and Josef’s crimes. I found them utterly compelling, even if they were hard going.

The Storyteller blew me away. It was magnificent, this is the novel that will cement Jodi Picoult as one of the best fiction writers to date. The story was harrowing, but it was utterly compelling. It was fiction, absolutely, but to know that this actually occurred, made it all the more difficult to swallow everything Josef and Minka were telling us. The novel is told from various points of view, mostly Josef and Minka, but also Sage, Minka’s granddaughter, along with Leo, who is helping Sage on her quest to learn all about Josef and his life, and then there’s a story interweaving between the chapters, telling the tale of Ania, I thought all of the stories interacted with each other perfectly, they complimented each other, and none of the stories or voices sound forced and I enjoyed seeing the novel from many different sides. I just loved The Storyteller. It’s truly the best novel I’ve ever read from Jodi Picoult, probably one of the best books I’ll read this year, if not ever. It’s a book that you simply have to read to believe. It really opened my eyes as to what happened during World War II and I’m so disappointed in myself that I didn’t know all of this already, how could it have passed me by? Just read it, it’s simply amazing.