Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. St. Martin's Griffin, 2007. Genre: Historical Fiction
Sarah, a ten year old girl, lived in Paris in 1942. Her family was one of the many in France who, on July 16, 1942, had to leave everything they had and were roundup by the French police by the orders of Germany. Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American Journalist living in France, is assigned the story of the Veledrome d'Hiver Roundup of 1942, and ends up chasing down Sarah's story.
Author Beth Harbison said, "Beautiful, painful, compelling. At times I didn't want to read on but I couldn't stop. A lyrical lesson in how the human spirit still shines through the shadowed shames of history."
Tatiana de Rosnay starts off by alternating who is telling the story in each chapter. Sarah tells her story and about what is happening in France of 1942, while Julia tells about her story and chasing down Sarah's story. About halfway through, only Julia tells the story, and it leaves you with a mystery, for Julia to find later, about what happened to Sarah.
The way De Rosnay wrote the book reminds me of My Sister's Keeper. It reminds me of the way Jodi Picoult also alternated between who told the story, and "let" everyone tell "their part".
"The day dragged on, endless, unbearable. Huddled against her mother, the girl watched the families around her slowly losing their sanity. There was nothing to drink, nothing to eat, the heat was stifling. The air was full of dry, feathery dust that stung her eyes and her throat"(30).
Tatiana De Rosnay was very descriptive in a way that made you feel like you were right in the scene with the main characters, but did not drag on about small details that would not have made a difference to the story.
Reading Sarah's Key really opens your eyes to what living in Europe during World War II. The Holocaust did not only affect Jews who were sent to the camps, although they suffered tremendously, but also the families who moved into the emptied house, knowing, and having to live with the fact that another family was just recently forced out of it. Before reading this book, I knew of the Holocaust, and that Jews were discriminated against. I knew that they were sent to camps, where most of them were killed. But, the details of how they did not know what was going to happen to them or their loved ones, and the suffering, not only physically, but mentally. Also, I did not know about the children. The number of children that were murdered during the Holocaust was huge, but the Vel' d'Hiv roundup had the greatest number of children that were sent to the camps, and none of them were able to return to Paris.
1. Nicole's overall impression of the book was that it was very informative but yet did not drag by with the unneeded small details. It also "opened her eyes about how families lived during WWII."
ReplyDelete2. Nicole noticed that the author swapped between characters and went from first person and third person as My Sister's Keeper did.
3. I think that the reviewer chose a very interesting passage. It gave me the impression of a common day in a concentration camp, which was terrible.
4. I would consider reading this book as I am very interested in World War II. My interest in WWII comes from my grandfather being in the war, fighting against the Germans for four years.
III. I think the format gave me a very good look on the book's overall "flavor". It gave me enough information on the book to understand the review. I thought this was all the information I needed, and that nothing should be taken out.