Title: Sarah’s Key
Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
Release Date: September 1, 2006
Length: 294 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
****My Review****
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.
Sarah’s Key is a moving story about two families. Families that are forever connected by one of the gloomiest days in France’s history.
To say this story is brilliant somehow doesn’t do it justice. So well written, so perfectly put together, and so emotional at the same time, Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is a story that can touch every reader.
After reading it, I thought I wouldn’t be able to find the words to write a review. Anger, rage, helplessness… countless emotions flooded me as I turned the pages.
Emotions that did not leave me even after a while. An injustice that hurts, even today. After so many years.
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is an emotionally intense story about the Holocaust of the Jews. This time the story takes us to France in 1942. This is the story of little Sarah who is arrested together with her parents and taken to the city stadium in Paris with many other Jewish families and deported to Auschwitz. She is a very young girl, totally ignorant of what awaits them.
To protect her little brother, she locks him in a secret closet in their apartment, thinking that she will return soon to save him. Sarah goes through many tortures that are hard for a child to bear…
This is also the story about a modern American woman who is married and lives in France, in Paris. She is a journalist who is assigned to write a story about the Jews and the injustice they suffered.
Julia should move into her husband’s grandmother’s apartment. That coincidentally is the same apartment where Sarah lived sixty years ago. Conducting a modern journalist’s investigation of that period is not easy. But Julia becomes obsessed with it. Will she manage to discover the whole truth?
Two stories combined into one. The beginning felt a bit confusing. The stories appeared kind of disjointed. But after reading a few chapters, the stories come together perfectly and draw you into their whirlwind of events and notes.
What impresses me is that this book offers insight into the WWII historical events involving France. The whole story is based on an event in history known as the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup. A day in which they arrested and deported 13,000 Jews. What angered me is that the French soldiers themselves were the extended arm of the Nazis. The one that punishes the innocent and shows some indifference that is incomprehensible to me. Indifference towards the destiny and suffering of their own people.
The events told through Julia’s perspective effectively carried the whole story, giving us a complete insight into the events. Parts of her personal life were very cleverly integrated into the whole story, offering an additional chance to draw a parallel between the behavior of the French in 1942 and modern times. Also parallels between the two families which aren’t obvious at the start.
Even though her life wasn’t particularly interesting, it greatly complimented the story as part of the journey towards the final destination: discovering the whole truth. A truth that is so disturbing.
It’s the first time I’ve read a book written by this author, and I liked her touching style from the start. So smooth, and easy to read , yet filled with very effective figures of speech and descriptions that transport you back in time.
What bothered me was the overt stereotyping of the characters. Not only were there some significant weaknesses in characterization, but they were too much developed in a predetermined mold.
Furthermore, the emotional aspect of Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay was kind of unimportant to me. The ending didn’t thrill me in the least as well. But everything else in this page-turning novel was fantastic. A tragic and masterfully told story about the uncovering of long-buried secrets and the damage that the truth can inflict when they are finally revealed.
What happened to little Sarah? Will Julia succeed in uncovering the secrets of her husband’s family? What has actually happened remains to be discovered after you read Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. A truly emotional and poignant dual-timeline historical fiction novel…
I remember reading this many years ago and it has stuck with me. Such an emotional story. I can’t believe anyone could treat people that way – especially kids. Great review x