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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
Great job of weaving the past with the present. Interesting point of view on WWII - a story not often told.
If I had known how much I would enjoy this book, I wouldn't have waited so long to get to it!
I really loved the story about Sarah, a young Jewish girl who was part of the Vel d'Hiv roundup in WWII Paris. I feel funny saying that I loved something that was so heartbreaking, but it was wonderfully told through an 11-year-old's eyes. Such horror and pain, and yet she survived and went on to love and be loved.
I didn't really love the story about Julia, a modern-day journalist living in Paris who becomes wrapped up in Sarah's story.
If the whole thing had been about Sarah and her experience, I would probably have given it 5 stars.
I really loved the story about Sarah, a young Jewish girl who was part of the Vel d'Hiv roundup in WWII Paris. I feel funny saying that I loved something that was so heartbreaking, but it was wonderfully told through an 11-year-old's eyes. Such horror and pain, and yet she survived and went on to love and be loved.
I didn't really love the story about Julia, a modern-day journalist living in Paris who becomes wrapped up in Sarah's story.
If the whole thing had been about Sarah and her experience, I would probably have given it 5 stars.
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
j'ai bien aimé la partie sur la vie de sarah et l'investigation de julia mais l'histoire allait bcp dans le sens de julia et on délaisse le point le plus intéressant de l'histoire. en parlant de julia... tous les détails sur sa vie étaient inutiles et le fait qu'elle soit américaine m'a saoulée. il aurait été mieux si elle avait été française comme ça, ça aurait un devoir de mémoire un peu plus fort. bref livre que je peux recommander mais un peu oubliable.
I am drawn to historical novels that focus on the plight of the Jewish people in Europe during WWII and this did not disappoint. Alternating chapters tell Sarah's story of being arrested in the Vel' d'Hiv roundup in Paris in July 1942 and Julia who in May 2002 finds connections to her own family in the long past horror. Powerful, haunting, compelling - give yourself time as you will not want to interrupt the story with laundry or cleaning, I didn't!
This book is incredible. Although it was gruesome in some parts, it was incredible and definitely life changing. Not a lot of people know about the jewish round up in Paris. I didn't before I read this book!! I have always had a love for learning about the Holocaust, and World War 2 in general. But this book perfectly portrayed the awful things that happened to these children, and the way they were treated. I thought the author also had a lot of insight on the topic also. She put a lot of feel into it. But the way it showed how Sarah felt during everything she was going through, she was an incredible human who had to endure a lot and was put through a lot. It was absolutely horrific in some parts, but very detailed and gave you a new way to look at things. Read this book. It changes you.
This is not a book I would probably have read, except that I picked up a brand-new copy for a buck. I am also reading a lot of books with narrators in two time periods, to get ideas for the novel that I'm rewriting, yet again. In any case, while I breezed through this book in practically no time at all, I feel like it was all empty calories--like eating potato chips for breakfast. It's the Holocaust as chick-lit.
Besides the not-so-artful writing (cliche, overexplaining, redundancy, fake suspense), there was also a shallowness to this character that made me cringe at times. I just didn't buy that this woman was so obsessed by the history of one Jewish family during WWII. I was engaged by the initial question--what will happen to the little brother locked in the cupboard. That's what kept me turning the pages.
I also don't understand why this French author decided to make the main character American, as it was obviously a stretch. This "American" woman seemed so French to me that I had to keep reminding myself (or having the author remind me) of her nationality. When she calls her sister in New York to ask advice on tracking someone down in the U.S., she is dumbfounded when the sister suggests the telephone book. Then the information operator is able to check a name in multiple states, with no city specified. This is just one of a myriad of small details that show a subtle disconnect between cultures, that the author is making assumptions based on her own experience and not taking the time to get the details right. A picky complaint, I know, but these things bug me.
The biggest problem, though, was that the first-person narrator engaged in a lot of exposition and explained herself all the time instead of showing by her behavior what kind of person she was. The conflicts in her life were all too easily resolved or glided over. She was not essentially challenged or changed in any real way. We're asked to believe that she has an epiphany about her self-involved husband (which is telegraphed at the very beginning), but she doesn't really go through any emotional territory to get there. And the final romantic moment--oy! Don't get me started. Cringe, cringe, cringe.
Besides the not-so-artful writing (cliche, overexplaining, redundancy, fake suspense), there was also a shallowness to this character that made me cringe at times. I just didn't buy that this woman was so obsessed by the history of one Jewish family during WWII. I was engaged by the initial question--what will happen to the little brother locked in the cupboard. That's what kept me turning the pages.
I also don't understand why this French author decided to make the main character American, as it was obviously a stretch. This "American" woman seemed so French to me that I had to keep reminding myself (or having the author remind me) of her nationality. When she calls her sister in New York to ask advice on tracking someone down in the U.S., she is dumbfounded when the sister suggests the telephone book. Then the information operator is able to check a name in multiple states, with no city specified. This is just one of a myriad of small details that show a subtle disconnect between cultures, that the author is making assumptions based on her own experience and not taking the time to get the details right. A picky complaint, I know, but these things bug me.
The biggest problem, though, was that the first-person narrator engaged in a lot of exposition and explained herself all the time instead of showing by her behavior what kind of person she was. The conflicts in her life were all too easily resolved or glided over. She was not essentially challenged or changed in any real way. We're asked to believe that she has an epiphany about her self-involved husband (which is telegraphed at the very beginning), but she doesn't really go through any emotional territory to get there. And the final romantic moment--oy! Don't get me started. Cringe, cringe, cringe.