What I wasn't expecting was to be completely blown away and left speechless. Read moreĪlways a fan of Jodi Picoult, I had no doubt about reading this novel. In the end, there is much to like in this one, but the way that the past and the present are handled hurts things and makes the whole less than the sum of its parts. On the plus side, Picoult takes shots at some shades of gray and at Justin Bieber, so she has that going for her. In addition, a significant plot twist that ties the grandmother's backstory to the present day is projected a bit too much, taking away from the effect that should have been generated by the eventual reveal. As a result, it was almost necessary to go back and get reacquainted with the present-day characters once the massive amount of backstory was completed in the middle of the book. It was almost as if Picoult had a novelette written and tucked away and chose to adapt it as a part of this larger effort. First off, Picoult chose to devote far too much time to the grandmother's backstory during WWII, especially given that the grandmother didn't seem to be the focal point of the story. At the same time, however, some story elements were handled in ways that detracted from the whole, keeping me from giving it the fourth star that a part of me really wanted to give it.
"But see how much of me is left?" the grandmother asks the younger woman at one point, sending a message that the latter is slow to grasp even though she does grasp it by the end. There's much to like in this tale of two damaged Jewish women, a grandmother and granddaughter, who both carry visible scars of internal baggage.
In this searingly honest novel, Jodi Picoult gracefully explores the lengths to which we will go in order to keep the past from dictating the future. With the integrity of the closest friend she’s ever had clouded, Sage begins to question the assumptions and expectations she’s made about her life and her family. If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well. Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t.Įverything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. An astonishing novel about redemption and forgiveness from the “amazingly talented writer” ( HuffPost) and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult.
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