Caitlin's Reviews > The Storyteller

This book was ok. I have read pretty much everything Picoult has written, and I'm also a massive history buff, so I looked to this book with very high hopes.

Don't get me wrong, I liked this book - for reasons outlined by many of the other reviewers on this site. So for something a little different, I thought I would provide a few suggestions I would have made if I was Picoult's editor.

This is because I've started to notice in the last few books there are gaping continuity errors that reveal bigger editing problems. This isn't surprising - as Picoult releases a book a year on a specific date, and this deadline must be met, and who would argue with a best-selling author?


Things I would say if I was Picoult's editor:

1. Go read Markus Zusack's "The Book Thief."

The Holocaust is a social scar that can go some way to healing, but should not be allowed to be covered up like Minka's long sleeves. But Holocaust stories need to either be meticulously researched (or you get people complaining about historical errors) or it has to be absolutely emotionally honest, which is why I suggest Zusack.

This is because he is able to communicate the fear, uncertainty, moral reactions and other emotions his characters feel going through the events of the Second World War - but the key difference is that he does this by showing, not telling, the reader what his characters are feeling.

It's actually quite common in your work to read passages where characters just tell the reader what they feel - rather than allowing the reader to interpret this through other means. Trust the reader, they're smart.


2. Characters are very important

Don't even get me started on the name choices and awful character quirks (a guy who speaks solely in Haiku unimpeded by having to mentally count syllables or a fist to the face? Please.)

Many of the characters needed more to them. This is something that kind of underpins a lot of my other suggestions - but for example, if Leo had experienced the effects of bullying (either victim, witness or perpetrator - at school or at home) this would have been a lot more engaging and explained his choice of career. Why would a nun leave a convent and then start a bakery?

Nobody should be an "extra" - and while you don't need to have a total backstory for every single character, even the more central characters need more meat on their bones.


3. When you start something, keep it going or just save it for another story

There are a lot of ideas and plot opportunities go nowhere. Two examples are the grief counseling support group and the "Jesus loaf" that attracts thousands of pilgrims to the bakery. They just sort of....stop. Right at the very end Sage says something to the effect of "Oh, the therapy group, remember, I used to do that. I haven't been for a while, but despite the possibility of self-harm nobody's thought to check up on me."

I assumed these would play a much bigger role in the story, but obviously not.



4. Sage's sisters - Rosemary and Thyme. Sorry, Salt n Pepper. What? Xanthum Gum and Baking Soda?

Again, apart from the ridiculousness of the names, you have to either make them go the full Regan and Goneral - there was the perfect opportunity for them to openly and loudly reminisce about their parents' funeral later in the book - or make them more forgiving towards the end.

Instead, you tell us they're mean and blame Sage for their parents' death - but once they find out she has a man, she's suddenly okay with them (and with you it seems. Because grief, moral quandaries and self-consciousness about facial scars are suddenly fine with some good old horizontal work.)


5. Religious faith is more than eating some things and doing certain stuff when someone dies

Religion is present throughout this story, but faith is noticeably absent. How would a teenage girl, incarcerated and facing death because of the world has turned against her religious faith, make peace with a God and a society that put her in this situation?


6. Out of the rich smorgasbord of European and Jewish mythologies including death eaters, Golems, soul stealers and shape-shifters, you had to go the full Twilight with the Ania and Alecks story, didn't you?

This is not the story a 1930/40s teenager facing the total and complete end of the world would write.

This is the story a modern teenager who, like, is totally facing the end of the world because Mom says I'm not allowed to check my status until I've started my homework and she made peanut butter cookies when she knows choc chip are my favourite...would write.


7. Let's just tear up these last five pages, shall we?

In "Keeping Faith" the whole book was driven by the question of whether the little girl really was experiencing messianic abilities (such as stigmata) or if she was faking it all along.

The ending was ambiguous, and it was wonderful. Book clubs all over the world talked late into the night and opened yet another bottle discussing this. It's made people go back and re-read the book. It made the book amazing and memorable.

Likewise, this book was driven by two questions. One was whether Sage would do what Josef asks - and ending on her arrival at his house would have been fine. She has still gone through character development and thoroughly explored the consequences of her actions. It's fine to fade to black there.

The second driving question was how both good and evil could co-exist in the same person. Morally ambiguous characters are interesting and cool - it's why Game of Thrones is so popular. (Well, that and boobs. Lots of boobs.)

So this is not just why the ending made me very disappointed in you, young lady, but it's also why I think some of the other characters didn't feel very realistic. They were too good. Why couldn't Leo do something that would compromise his burgeoning relationship with Sage? Why couldn't Minka do something that would get someone else in trouble in the camp but benefit herself or her friend? What if Minka's father had done something bad?

And this would incorporate the concept of the "Storyteller" into the book more thoroughly - the stories we tell ourselves to justify our actions. What stories does Sage tell herself to make it okay to knowingly sleep with a married man? What stories does Minka tell herself to assuage some of the guilt of being the survivor?


So there you are, Jodi, take those suggestions away and work on your manuscript - it should turn out much better now....