Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
|
List Price: Buy Used: from $0.81 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
(Click here)
Book Reviews of Sarah's Key
Book Review: Heart Wrenching and Painful
Summary: 5 Stars
The early chapters of Sarah's Key were painful to read. In the beginning, the novel alternates chapters between 10-year old Sarah's life and modern day Julia. Sarah's story centers around when she, her mother, and her father are taken as part of the round up of all Jews to Nazi camps with Auschwitz as the final destination while her younger brother is left behind to face an equally awful fate. Modern-day Julia is an American journalist who is living in Paris and is given the assignment of writing an article for the 60th anniversary of what has become known as Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv, the roundup and murder of Parisian Jews in 1942. It was painful to read Sarah's chapters because they were so well written that you could imagine this travesty while also questioning how something so horrific could have been caused by human choices and abuse of power. Sarah's chapers were so painful to read that I was relieved when the two parallel stories melded together and the rest of Sarah's story was told through Julia. While heart wrenching, I gained insight into a horrific event that I knew little about.Book Review: I read this book non-stop in one night.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have always been interested in Holocaust stories and had just read The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society novel when I came across Sarah's Key. Reading about the German occupation of Guernsey or how the French police were involved in rounding up French Jews was a new perspective of the Holocaust for me. I started reading this novel at 8:00pm and stayed up until 2:30am even though I had to work in the morning. I literally couldn't put it down. The juxtaposing of the modern-day and the 1942 story lines was beautifully done even before they became entwined. I think everyone must relate to Julia's feeling as an outsider at some point in their lives. Her courage and drive to find out the truth about what happened in July 1942 mirrors what many of us want to know about this time in history. And when you learn about the connection between Julia's husband's family and Sarah, you're struck with the realization that we are all closer to each other than we think. We are all connected. Julia was courageous in seeking the truth, in making sure the truth lived. We must do the same.Book Review: Sarah's Key unlocks all of our hearts
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't know that this is a book you love...because of the subject matter, but it is surely a most compelling one. I am amazed that as a student of history and a traveler, spending time in both Paris, other French cities and also in Germany, I had never heard of or encountered the stories of the Val D'Hiver children or of the atrocities the French Gendarmes committed against their own countrymen. We assume the Nazi leaders and their hatred destroyed millions of innocents but to actually realize the French complicity with the Nazis could do this is overwhelming. So many evil things happened during WW II, and there is much guilt to assign from those who designed the evil and those who failed to intervene to stop it. Perhaps the best preventative for having anything like that ever happen again is continual reminders of the damage. This
is well written and while historical is even more a character study of how one incident can cause ripples which continue into the lives of others who simply discover the pain, and want in some way just to remedy it.
Book Review: Wonderful Story, Wonderful Book
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was recommended to me by a friend. I had seen it before but didn't buy it because it didn't seem like a book I'd like. She was so adamant about how good the book was that I decided to buy it and give it a try. Wow, was she right about this book!
I spent a whole day reading this book, I couldn't put it down! I was immediately captivated by Sarah's story. I was, however, getting slightly depressed by what she was going through and almost wanted to stop reading, but then there was a sudden change of events that made me keep reading (I don't want to give away the surprise!).
I wasn't as excited about the book when it switched to Julia's chapters. Not that they were bad, but they were nothing like Sarah's chapters. I was also kind of disappointed when Sarah's chapters just ended and the remainder of the story was told through Julia. I would have liked to hear more of Sarah's point of view.
Even with my few small gripes listed above, I still LOVED this book. I definitely recommend reading "Sarah's Key".
Book Review: Sarah's Key
Summary: 5 Stars
When the Nazis unexpectedly came one night to get Sarah and her family, no one in the family thought that they would be gone long. Least of all Sarah. In order to protect her brother, she locked him in a hiding place within their apartment in Paris, taking the key, and promising to return. Devastatingly, the family's excursion was not a short one. They were taken to Auschwitz.
Sixty years later, Julia, an American reporter living in Paris with her husband and daughter, learns about the little discussed roundup in Paris during World War II. Appalled that the Vel D'hive incident is not known among her French countrymen, she searches for answers, finding a link between her in-laws and the story of Sarah.
Ms. Rosnay weaves together the story of Sarah and the story of Julia, alternating between the two linked stories. Tragedy, love, devotion, and pain flit between these two stories, revealing painful truths and realities. Beautifully and sensitively crafted, this story is not one that the reader will easily forget.