Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.95 You Save: $9.00 (65%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.51 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Sarah's Key
Book Review: Emotionally shattering
Summary: 5 Stars
I started reading this book yesterday afternoon and finished it by Midnight. I am a student of the Shoah and have read many many fiction and non-fiction books describing the tragedy of the European Jews during the second world war.
The book is beautifuly written and the alternating stories of Sarah's childhood horrors with the present day story of forty-five year old Julia is mesmerizing. I am not going to discuss the plot -- many reviewers of this book have magnificantly already done so.
Sarah's Key grabbed a hold of me and the devastating story of the destruction of an innocent child and her family in a way that no other holocaust book has ever done. I knew about the Velodrome d'Hiver from previous books -- but the horrific and sadistic action of the French police during the round-up of Jewish families on July 16, 1942 was new information.
France has a long and troubled history of Anti-Semtism; it seems to me that the French are split into two camps: those who are openly Anti-Semetic and those who are covertly Anti-Semetic. However, I am not attempting to demonize the French -- the fact is that the entire world -- Europeans and the democratic allies did absolutely nothing to help the Jews before and during the war. Many European countries avidly assisted the Nazis and turned their Jews over to a certain and horrible death. The United States State Department was openly Anti-Semetic during the 1930's and prevented legal immigration of German Jews who were desperately trying to escape from Hitler's rule. So there is plenty of blame and shame to go around.
I now want to respond to the reviewers who hated this book. What bothered you so much? Was it the thought that a 10 year old child could bravely go through such horror and still try and help her lost brother? Was it the fact that American Julia questioned her French husband's family and their actions during the war? Was it the fact that the heinous actions of the French police and the general indifference of the French population hit too close to home?
I unreservedly recommend this book to anyone who has the heart and courage to share Sarah's journey. Buy it! Read it! Share it with your friends and family! But make sure you have a handkerchief nearby because, if you react as I did, you will be crying while you read.
Book Review: Remember and Never Forget!
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Kam Aures for Rebecca's Reads (06/09)
It has been a long time since I have read a work of fiction as powerful and moving as "Sarah's Key" by Tatina de Rosnay. Although the characters in the book are fictitious, many of the actual events, most particularly the Velodrome d'Hiver (Vel' d' Hiv') roundup, are all too true. Before this book I had never heard of this particular Holocaust tragedy in France and found it to be deeply disturbing. Basically what happened in Paris was that on the morning of July 16, 1942, the French police rounded up all of the Jewish men, women, and children and put them in the Vel' d' Hiv indoor stadium without bathrooms, minimal food, and nowhere to sleep. Then they were taken to camps.
This novel, "Sarah's Key," neatly intertwines this historical time with a modern day story. The writing is told from Sarah's perspective in the past to Julia's perspective in the present in alternating chapters. I enjoyed the format of the book and found that everything came together neatly.
Tatiana de Rosnay is a very talented author whose writing allows you to vividly picture the events taking place. There are two images that continue to remain in my mind after I finished the book. The first one is right from the beginning of the book when the girl, her father, and her mother are taken by the French police. She locks her four-year-old brother in their secret cupboard and pockets the key telling him that she will be back to save him. The image of that poor four-year-old (the same age as my son) hiding in there trusting and anticipating that his sister will be back for him is heartbreaking. The other haunting image is the one at the camp when all of the parents were sent off to different camps and the children were left to fend for themselves. Toddlers were separated from their mothers and left on their own. The fear that these children must have felt is emotionally overwhelming.
"Sarah's Key" is a gripping story that you will not be able to put down once you have started reading. The horrors detailed in de Rosnay's writing are extremely sad and the book is definitely not a light read. Be prepared emotionally before you pick up this book because the harrowing images will become engrained in your mind.
Book Review: beautifully constructed, powerfully told
Summary: 4 Stars
Do you choose books by their covers? I remember looking many times at Sara's Key in the store. The cover has a very French-looking image, slightly sepia-toned, of a small boy and girl running where parents might ask them to walk, with the Eiffel Tower standing tall in the distant sky. It intrigued me, but the words, such as "profoundly moving...morally challenging...nothing short of miraculous..." underneath weren't enough to encourage me to buy.
Luckily something was enough to encourage my friend, and she loaned me her copy recently, for which I'm profoundly grateful. Sara's Key is a lovely book, a superbly constructed tale set in past and present, with the sort of timing that leaves the reader breathlessly coming up on a conclusion just as the secret's about to be revealed.
Of course, that conclusion comes only half-way through the book, and there's a longer present-day tale, full of the consequences of secrets hid and mysteries revealed. There are no easy answers in this book, and nobody comes off as perfect. But with all the characters' flaws and imperfections, there's a truth and honesty that shines stubbornly through.
The novel centers round the arrest and deportation of French Jews in Paris during World War II, and the subsequent cover-up. I already knew the main points of the story, having grown up in Europe, but the novel makes them personal in a very powerful way, following a young girl who has hidden her brother away to keep him safe just before the French police arrive. Hope and despair alternative in the reader as well as on the page, while 60 years later an American woman, married to a Frenchman, tries to uncover the past without hurting her family or the children of the present.
The dilemmas of life and death, risk and security, truth and comfort all thread through Rosnay's tale. How do we protect those we love and stay true to ourselves? And what if we fail?
I didn't cry when I read this book, but I nearly did. The ending actually disappointed me, though I'm not sure why; it was certainly true to the tale. But maybe such a story isn't set up to please. I truly loved it and will probably buy a copy of my own one day so I can read it again, and maybe I'll understand why the ending is just right.
Book Review: Book Review of Sarah's Key
Summary: 3 Stars
It is not very often that a book can be carried by plot alone, but Sarah's Key is one of them. Tatiana de Rosnay's fictionalized account of Nazi-occupied Paris is praised by Holocaust survivors for the attention she brings to a lesser known tragic episode of the War.
Her language is unremarkable, and the characters a bit flat. Many of the events she creates in present day are overly sentimental. However, I had never heard of the Vel' d'Hiv', and so I was mesmerized and intently curious about the story. Thus, the subject itself gives the novel the depth and texture necessary for a good read.
In short, by orders of the Nazi government, in July of 1942, French Police rounded up more than 13,000 Jews living in Paris. For six days, they were housed in a stadium without food or water, much less appropriate living conditions. (Reminiscent of the stories we heard from those who stayed in the Super Dome after Katrina.) Then men were divided from women and children as they were shipped to several camps on the outskirts of Paris. From those camps, women were separated from their children, and all were taken to Auschwitz.
Sarah's Key tells parallel stories - one of a young girl, Sarah, who, with her parents, is part of the round up; and the second, a journalist, Julia, in (almost) present day Paris who is writing a memorial to commemorate the 60-year anniversary of the events. In a contrived but expedient twist of fate, the apartment where Sarah's family was forced from is then occupied (and so owned) by the family of Julia's husband. When the story begins, Julia's architect husband is renovating the flat in preparation for moving his wife a daughter in. The narrative alternates between Sarah's story and Julia's discovery of and then search for Sarah.
Sarah's Key refers to a key to a secret hiding place in their home - a space within the walls - where Sarah hides her younger brother when the police come. From the moment Sarah and her parents are taken away, she is intent on getting back home to free her brother from the locked hideaway.
At just under 300 pages, this is a quick and worthy read - despite its shortcomings.Sarah's Key
Book Review: Sarah's Key
Summary: 4 Stars
Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in France, is told to write an article on the 60th anniversary of Vel' d'Hiv, a roundup of Jews by the French police in 1942. As Julia discovers more about the Vel' d'Hiv, she becomes fascinated with the story of a particular ten year-old girl and her family who were arrested. Julia discovers that Sarah, this girl, locked her little brother in a hidden cupboard during the arrest, thinking they would be back shortly. Julia uses this intricate research as an escape from her own life, her own little girl, and a husband who is becoming increasingly distant. The life of Sarah even begins to parallel Julia's life in certain ways.
Tatiana de Rosnay wrote a masterpiece in Sarah's Key. For the first half of the book, the story jumps from Julia's life with first person narration to Sarah's life with third person narration. I appreciated that different styles of narration were used because it is more difficult to follow otherwise. Eventually, we stop following Sarah and only find out things about her life as Julia discovers them.
To be completely honest, I was not enamored with Julia as a protagonist. Sometimes I just wanted to shake her and yell that she was doing it all wrong! On the other hand, Sarah's story was absolutely captivating. I wanted more, more, more! Eventually, I had to just tolerate Julia in order to find out what happens to Sarah. I do not think we are supposed to love Julia as a character-she is meant to be stubborn and self-absorbed (at times). In an author's interview in the back of my copy (Reading Group Gold), Tatiana de Rosnay states she "created a character who could really exist and that women can identify with!"
I was a child who was always fascinated with the Holocaust. I mainly could not believe people would do something like that! Of course, politics and war are lost on a child, but I could certainly understand the horror and tragedy. There are many children's books written about the Holocaust, particularly about Jews in hiding, and Sarah's Key took me back to those. Even if it takes a little while to get into, this book is a must read for people interested in the Holocaust or historical fiction in general.
This review originally published at [...]