The storyteller - Jodi Picoult

"Mr Darcy and Mr Butler will have to wait because I am in love with Leo Stein!"

Humor aside, Jodi Picoult did it again. She was able to cleverly tear her readers heart to million pieces and drown their minds to the grim occurring of the fiction, closely related to the heart-wrenching holocaust. This was truly an 'intense' and 'could not be put down' read.

The story revolves around four major characters:

• Sage Singer, a 25 year old car crash survivor with a facial scar; who is a self proclaimed atheist with a Jewish background; an amazing baker and a loner.
• Josef Weber, a 95 years old lovable and well respected retired German teacher.
• Minka, a holocaust survivor and Sage's grandmother.
• Leo Stein, a FBI agent from DC who specializes in tracking down Nazi fugitives.

Sage meets Josef in one of her grief group session and develops a good friendship with him as he frequents the bakery she works in. As their friendship blooms, Josef asks Sage for a favor. He wants her to forgive her and help him die. Shell shocked, Sage denies, but Josef slowly coaxes her and tells her his deepest, darkest and grave past of being a Nazi SS guard; and how he was involved in the killing of innocent Jews. Sage; confused, angry tries to get help from department of justice and meets Leo. In the process of discovering the truth and finding a witness for the unforgivable deeds of Josef, they cajole Minka to verbally relive her painful past as a holocaust survivor. It was a great mystery because she never shared her war time sufferings with anyone. Slowly the jigsaw puzzle are put into place and they realize Josef was one of the guards who held Minka as prisoner. With all the truth revealed 
and crystal clear, what will Sage do? Is atonement by a culprit, even decades after the horrible crime is done,  forgivable? Is it that easy? Does that do justice to the sufferers; to the dead? The end yields a surprising twist.

The spellbinding part of this book was when Minka described her life; that transformed from a happy normal family with a predilection of being a writer to getting lost in the midst of war. How her and other Jewish family were moved from a happy Jewish community to a Lodz ghetto, and then imprisoned in Auschwitz concentration camp. How she lost her family, her best friend! Their everyday misery; the insufferable and unimaginable pain of hunger; the instinct of survival. 

I was in tears when Jodi described a Jewish bride in her lacy bridal dress, trying hysterically to find her family members in the concentration camp; or when a mother was expected to work like normal days after her child was murdered by Nazis. It was ruthless and I still cringe at the thought of it.

Josef's description of his war time life as a Nazi made the whole story heavier. Like we were getting a first hand experience of the emotions of a killer. It was bizarre. (I don't want to read Peter's mind in nineteen minutes anymore!)

The other part that I found absolutely astonishing was a story within the story. Some may find it annoying but I loved it. May it be The tales of Beedle the Bard in Harry Potter, An Imperial Affliction in The fault in our stars, or the story of a Polish vampire/beast (Upior) and Ania in The storyteller; I adored it. It was a scurrilously planned distraction to the heart wrenching pain of a holocaust survivor.

Jodi's trademark of first person narration made this story closer to one's heart. Though she did not bother with a court scene which she marvelously portrayed in her other creations, the storyteller surely is one of her best book that I have read so far. 

Why I love Leo? You have to read the book to reciprocate my feelings. 

Happy reading folks!!

My favorite lines from this epic book :

Loss is more than just death, and grief is the grey shape shifter of emotion.

It doesn't matter what it is that leaves a hole inside you. It just matters that it's there.

That's the paradox of loss: how can something that's gone weigh us down so much?

Good people are good people; religion has nothing to do with it.

It is impossible to believe anything in a world that has ceased to regard man as man, that repeatedly proves that one is no longer a man- Simon Wiesenthal

Each memory is like paper flower stowed upon a magician's sleeve: invisible one moment and then so substantial and florid the next I can't imagine how it stayed hidden all this time.

I realise, how quickly lies compound. They cover like a coat of paint, one on top of the other, until you cannot remember what color you started with.

If you hide long enough, a ghost among men, you might disappear forever without anyone noticing. It's human nature to ensure that someone has seen the mark you left behind.

Anonymity, I guess, always comes at a price.

The only monster I have ever know were men.

All writers start with a layer of truth, don't they? If not, their stories would be nothing but spools of cotton candy, a fleeting taste wrapped around nothing but air.

Morality has nothing to do with religion. You can do the right thing and not believe in God at all.

what would you grab, if you had to pack up your life in only minutes?

Truth is so much harder than fiction.

What is the point of trying to put down on paper emotions that are too complex, too huge, too overwhelming to be confined by an alphabet? Love isn't the only word that fails. Hate does, too. War. And hope. Oh yes hope.

No more dangerous than living in the present and realizing nothing's changed.

History isn't about dates and places and wars. It's about the people who fill the spaces between them.

It's an odd luxury, knowing someone's got my back.

But forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself.

(I just realized I haven't reviewed a book for a long time. It's not that I am not reading books. They are my only salvation right now, admist the ridiculous situations occurring in my surroundings and the world. It's just that my work schedule is a little occupying. But I promise to drop down the randomness more frequently from now on. Ciao!)