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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
informative
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
This book starts out in a wonderful and slowly building pace that doesn't provide the payoff at the end. Thought the juxtaposition of the two stories (Julia's in 2001ish and the girl's back in 1942) told the stories beautifully. Short chapters kept you from getting too involves and giving too much weight to one story over the other. Telling the story of horrors through the eyes of a child is very well done, and trying to capture the hands-off attitude of the French in taking credit for their complicity in atrocities was the best part of the book. The last fifth of the book leaves off Sarah's very complex story as a vehicle to Julia's searching for her and the book is less interesting for it. Continuing to find a way to link the stories would have made the book amazing and wonderful instead of just good. So far, no one seems to agree, but they've read this too long ago to argue.
This was a compelling read. I couldn't put it down. I wouldn't suggest reading it if you aren't in the mood for a good cry.
I got so invested in this story!! It was heartbreaking and wonderful and sad and happy all at the same time. This part of history should never be forgotten!
I'm baffled how this book has such high ratings, unless people have just somehow managed to avoid the scads of other Holocaust books out there and are so emotionally overwhelmed by reading about it for the first time that they can overlook the horribly clunky way in which it is delivered. Seriously, the writing was so bad, both at a sentence level — "telling not showing," so many comma splices — and at a plot level, with soap opera drama in the life of the present-day character, Julia, who as a French journalist is a clear stand-in for de Rosnay herself. (Will she get an abortion? Will her husband cheat on her again? Will she get divorced? Will she ever have good sex again?) I had a hard time caring what happened to Julia, or honestly what happened to Sarah either. Sarah had very little in the way of a personality — she was just a character to which things happened so that de Rosnay could showcase a series of historical events for the reader. I did feel a bit of a pang when Sarah finally found her brother's dead body in the closet , but it wasn't exactly unexpected, and I can imagine that in the hands of a better writer, that point in the story would have caused full-on weeping for me.
It's clear that the author was trying to make two main points with this book: one was educating more people about the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, and two was calling attention to how modern-day French attitudes have obscured the role of the French people in the horrors of the Holocaust. The problem is that the characters and the plot were all in service to those two points (Sarah's story serving the first and Julia's the second), and so the story existed to prop up the intended moral rather than being a fully developed story unto itself. Julia's personal drama was thrown in just to make more things happen in the course of the book, which is why the book ended up wrapping up in an awkward and painfully predictable way.
If you want to learn about the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, read some articles about it. If you want to get a feeling for what it was like to live through World War II in occupied France, read The Nightingale. If you want to understand what living through the Holocaust was like, read Night or The Hiding Place or Maus. This book is just emotional manipulation wrapped in poor writing and excessive personal drama.
It's clear that the author was trying to make two main points with this book: one was educating more people about the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, and two was calling attention to how modern-day French attitudes have obscured the role of the French people in the horrors of the Holocaust. The problem is that the characters and the plot were all in service to those two points (Sarah's story serving the first and Julia's the second), and so the story existed to prop up the intended moral rather than being a fully developed story unto itself. Julia's personal drama was thrown in just to make more things happen in the course of the book, which is why the book ended up wrapping up in an awkward and painfully predictable way.
If you want to learn about the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, read some articles about it. If you want to get a feeling for what it was like to live through World War II in occupied France, read The Nightingale. If you want to understand what living through the Holocaust was like, read Night or The Hiding Place or Maus. This book is just emotional manipulation wrapped in poor writing and excessive personal drama.
Wow. Two books in a row that spoke of the big Jewish roundup by French police during WWII... I'd never even heard of this before! (Paris by Edward Rutherford is the other book, it is briefly mentioned). This book is written in alternating voices: Sarah, the 10 year old Jewish girl who was taken with her parents away from Paris, and Julia, a modern day American/Parisienne journalist trying to uncover Sarah's story. The premise here is that Sarah locks her little brother in a hidden cupboard when the police come, thinking she will be able to come back shortly to rescue him. But she is taken far away and struggles to get home. We find out early in the book that during this period of history many non-Jewish French families suddenly found newer/bigger/cheaper/nicer apartments to live in that had suddenly been vacated by Jewish families "for unknown reasons." Apparently the French people overall totally ignored what was happening around them. Julia's husband's grandparents were one of these French families who moved into a better apartment. There is a huge family secret surrounding this and no one will talk about it. At about page 80 I suddenly suspected that the grandparents found the little boy and raised him as their son and that Julia's husband's father was that Jewish boy and this was the secret. I actually thought that if this was true then this was a terribly written book and totally unrealistic. Thankfully that is not the route the story went; it was far more heartbreaking. Then Julia goes through this whole have an abortion or not thing, and that really annoyed me. Her husband didn't want to be an old father so he told her to get an abortion or end the marriage. Well by how much she complained about him up until this... I was ready to huck the book out the window at this point. I could have done with less of the modern day "poor me" side of the story and then this book probably would have been 5 stars. If anything, read it to learn about what hate does to people and what fear does to people. Read it and try to understand how humans can treat other humans like nothing, or less than nothing.
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I liked it. I felt the ending could have been done better....
Sarah's Key follows the stories of Sarah Starzynski and Julia Jarmond in alternating chapters. Sarah Starzynski is a young girl when French policeman round up over 13,000 Jewish people throughout Paris in July 1942 in what would become known as the Vél d'Hiv Round Up. Sarah, mistakenly believing that her family will return to their home shortly, locks her 4 year old brother in a secret cupboard to hide him from the police. Despite all the hardships she faces, Sarah's main concern is getting back to Paris to find her brother. Meanwhile, Julia Jarmond is an American journalist living in France and covering the 60th commemoration of the Vél d'Hiv Round Up. Though the two stories are separated by 60 years, they are intimately connected. Through investigating Sarah's story, Julia discovers a secret her husband's family has held onto for decades as well as the strength to make difficult choices in her personal life. Though I found myself less emotionally invested once Sarah's narrative was over, de Rosnay did an excellent job demonstrating the dangers of complacency, silence, and the desire to forget on both personal and societal levels. Sarah's Key is a powerful read and was my first encounter with in-depth information on the Vél d'Hiv Round Up, which I (and many characters in the book) had never been taught about in school. The Holocaust is often overlooked or broad-brushed as a singular event carried out only by Nazis in most education systems, which makes de Rosnay's focus on French complicity and the prolonged process of deporting Jewish people even more impactful.