Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
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Book Reviews of Sarah's Key
Book Review: Exceptional
Summary: 5 Stars
"Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay is an exceptional novel. The lives of two disparate characters are followed in this book. One is American writer Julia living in current day Paris. The other character is a French girl (Sarah) who's story begins in 1942 during World War II.
In order to write an article for her magazine, Julia researches French Jews that were sent to camps during WWII. As she learns about the horrors faced in 1942, she delves deeper into this historical event. She eventually decides to focus on one particular person's history - a young Jewish girl who used to live in the house where Julia herself will soon live.
The other story describes Sarah, who is in fact, the 10 year old girl that lived in the house where Julia plans to move. Sarah and her parents are arrested by French police along with many other Jews on the morning of July 16 1942. Sarah's story is heart wrenching and appalling. While this is a work of fiction, the part of Sarah is based on actual events.
This novel kept me enthralled and I couldn't put it down - read it in a single day. It's a very touching story. Highly recommended.
Book Review: Very beautifully written and hard to put down!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The book has two main themes: on the one hand the tragic story of the Jewish girl, Sarah, who witnesses the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations of thousands of Jewish families who were arrested and held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver before being transported to Auschwitz, and on the other, the modern story of the journalist, Julia Jarmond, a woman in her forties, married and pregnant, who gets very much engaged in Sarah's destiny when doing her research about it.
Sarah's story is haunting and poignant and we follow it in flashbacks. Julia is an attractive character who tries to balance her role as a journalist, wife, mother and independent and free thinker.
As the story evolves, Julia's character becomes stronger and she discovers who she is and what she wants in life. The end is surprisingly positive and is a very skillful compensation for the sadness that threatens to take over the story.
The book is very beautifully written and hard to put down.
Joyce Akesson, author of Love's Thrilling Dimensions and The Invitation
Book Review: Not at all what I expected
Summary: 5 Stars
My mom read this book this winter, crying half the time, and told me it was about this little boy who got locked in a cabinet during a nazi raid...
Imagine my surprise when I read the same book and found it was about how the modern French try to reconcile their past with the Nazis.
This book was a wonderful balance of the personal story of our heroine, a journalist who is covering a roundup of french jews on the anniversary, the french culture (I'm assuming it's close to truth, which is rather scary!), and a terrible tragedy that haunts three families.
I loved the way that the story was paced, the way the characters were drawn (for example, you'd be inclined to despise the philandering husband, until you really feel sorry for him) and just the way it was told. Because, through all the tragedy, it held hope.
In particular, I liked the ending, which, surprise surprise, I managed to not read until the end! This is rare for me. But the book kept me so wrapped that I didn't have time to flip back.
Fantastic read, would highly recommend, even if it makes you cry.
(*)>
Book Review: One Awesome Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I approached Sarah's Key as an avid reader and as an historian. This is one of those truly excellent books that come along every once in a while; I picked it up while looking for something lighter than the nonfiction I've been reading. It is historical fiction at its best. Tatiana de Rosnay is spot on with her history and her choice of topic is superb: the inhumane treatment of French Jews by French authorities acting on Nazi orders in July, 1942. She seamlessly weaves two stories together by alternating chapters until the stories merge. One story follows Sarah, a Jewish child who escaped the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup but loses her parents and brother, the other, Julia, an American journalist for a French magazine in Paris who is assigned to research and write an article about the roundup. Julia, having never heard of these events, becomes horrified and mesmerized and continues her research until it informs her life, her marriage and her family. Wonderful history, characters who really live, an arresting plot, and beautiful prose.Book Review: One of finest Holocaust novels
Summary: 5 Stars
Because of my own to-be-published memoir on the subject ("Out of Prague: A Memoir of Survival, Denial, and Triumph"), I try to read any and all books on this subject -- fiction and nonfiction. Some are good, some are fair, others are outstanding. Taking its place at or near the top of the latter group is "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay. It is a fictional account of a young girl's separation from her parents, following a real event: the round-up of thousands of French Jews and their children -- not by Germans, but by French police. Ms.de Rosnay teaches us about this shameful and little-known crime by skillfully interweaving two story lines -- those of Sarah, the Jewish girl who holds a terrible secret and Julia, an American journalist, who uncovers the secret. The story is powerful and compelling. At the same time, it is so terrifying that -- on many occasions -- I wanted to stop reading. But, I couldn't. I am grateful to St. Martin's Press, and its Griffin imprint, for publishing one of the finest books in this genre. Go out and buy this book. It will make you cry, but you will never forget it.