Book Reviews: The Sock Wars & The Storyteller

The Storyteller
by Jodi Picoult

Goodreads.com Synopsis:
Sage Singer befriends an old man who’s particularly beloved in her community. Josef Weber is everyone’s favorite retired teacher and Little League coach. They strike up a friendship at the bakery where Sage works. One day he asks Sage for a favor: to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses…and then he confesses his darkest secret – he deserves to die, because he was a Nazi SS guard. Complicating the matter? Sage’s grandmother is a Holocaust survivor.

What do you do when evil lives next door? Can someone who’s committed a truly heinous act ever atone for it with subsequent good behavior? Should you offer forgiveness to someone if you aren’t the party who was wronged? And most of all – if Sage even considers his request – is it murder, or justice?

My Review: 4 out of 5 stars. Wow…what an ending! I can only say that you can’t quite possibly expect the twists and turns this book takes right up to the very last minute. This book is beautifully written by Picoult. It weaves a story through past and present and deals with WWII in a way that is grossly enlightening yet still very beautiful.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are 100% my own.

The Sock Wars
by Maia Sepp

Goodreads.com Synopsis:
Lucy Tuttle is a workaholic financial planner whose biggest worry is how to line up the sticky notes on her desk just so, until her only relative dies in a car accident halfway across the world. Suddenly Lucy (apartment-dwelling, doesn’t-own-a-hammer Lucy) inherits a handyman’s delight on the other side of town. Her boyfriend, a laid back environmentalist with an affinity for organic lentils and sock thievery, convinces Lucy to move into her aunt’s brokendown house. The two of them embark on a quest to settle down, renovate her aunt’s home, and start a family, but as it turns out, living happily ever after in a house that’s about to be condemned isn’t so easy after all.

“The Sock Wars” is a novel of love, loss, and what gets left behind.

The first chapter of “The Sock Wars” was published as a short story/novel excerpt titled “Irish Drinking Socks”, and became a Kobo bestselling short story.

My Review: 3 out of 5 stars. I wasn’t overly impressed with this book. I felt that the main character, Lucy, really couldn’t move forward with her life after the sudden death of her aunt. And it really made the book drag for me. I wouldn’t tell you to rush right out to get it but I wouldn’t tell you not to give it a try. It was so-so for me. Not very memorable.

Have you read either of these books? What are you currently reading?