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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
I learned a lot about the Vel d'Hiv, I had no idea the extent of the situation. It was very touching and spoke to many different life situations.
medium-paced
This was a really good book that intertwined a modern story with a historical fiction. It was well written, informative, and emotional. I wish more attention had been given to the historical story. I would like to know more about the Vel d'Hiv incident and about the Occupation in France during WWII. It is not something that most people seem to know about... even in France. Interesting. Overall, while the modern story was interesting, I didn't feel like it added that much to the overall story. I didn't feel invested enough in the modern characters to really care about what they did and why they did what they did. I would have liked to have read more about the narrator's father-in-law, Edouard, or his mother, Mame'. There just wasn't enough. Anyway, overall I quite enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it.
Stories about the Holocaust have always caught my interest. I must admit that this story featured an event about which I had little knowledge: the rounding up of French Jews at the Velodrome d'Hiver. A short and quick read, I would recommend it to those who are keen to read something new about this subject.
There are books so brilliantly done that they are worth the emotional scarring. Cormac McCarthy's The Road comes to mind. Unfortunately, this is not one of them.
I was kind of mixed about whether to give this book three or four stars. On the one hand, I felt the book dragged on after somewhere near the 60% mark. But on the other hand, the content and story of Sarah was one that I haven't read about the Holocaust. A huge theme throughout the book is also remembering the tragedies and histories of one's family and country, which is something that I also find very important.
Definitely a sad book, and it's kind of hard to give something like this a happy ending. But I have to say I felt satisfied when I turned the last page.
Definitely a sad book, and it's kind of hard to give something like this a happy ending. But I have to say I felt satisfied when I turned the last page.
This is a book that will keep me thinking about the horrific events for a long time.
I hesitate to recommend books that I read during a day spent in airports and in flying metal tubes because of the "captive audience syndrome" but this one really was a page-turner. It's always fun for a francophile to read about someone who lives in France but this went deeper with its historically heart-wrenching subject matter, and based on the character's experience, one that even many French people were unaware of until the mid-1990s. It's a heavy story, not entirely original either, but it is engrossing.
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I liked the style of the first half of the book in that the story alternated between Sarah and Julia's perspective, but lost interest when the story shifted to present day Julia. The history of the Vel' D' Hiv' was enlightening, but I found the characters to be too stereotypical to really be invested in them.