The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult

I finally finished The Storyteller (it's a very long book), and my final verdict is that I liked it.    There are horrifying parts, much struggle, physical, mental and emotional, and many bad choices.  It's about a Nazi SS man, age 95, a holocaust survivor, the survivor's granddaughter, the granddaughter's married lover and her new boyfriend, a Catholic nun, estrangement, redemption and failure at redemption, and hard hard choices.  It is engaging and compelling and heartbreaking, but still very very good.

There IS a plot twist at the end,* which makes the book even more heart-breaking, BUT it is not entirely contrived, as some preparation has been made in the book to make the plot twist possible, believable and realistic.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with a strong constitution.

I am angry at Goodreads for eating my first attempt to write a review of this so I had to do it over and it may not be as good this time. Grrr, this has happened to many times in the past, and it infuriates me.

*Some Jodi Picoult books have very contrived endings (annoyingly so).  This one is good, even though unexpected.  I think it's her best book so far (by which, I mean, so far of the ones of hers I've read.)

I wanted to post this to The Sunflower blog. but it isn't functioning for some reason.  The reason I wanted to post this there is because the Sunflower is a blog that examines forgiveness, and ultimately, that is what this book is about.  There is much discussion about who can and should forgive whom about what, and why.  Excellent thoughts on the subject.