Sarah's Key: A Novel

This is one of those books that I felt was too contrived. Circumstantial things do happen to people but this was unbelievable to me.
The storyline also seemed more complicated than it needed to be. It was hard to tell what the main objective was.

Are beautiful and moving story I couldn't put it down until I had finished it

This was a very moving story. I wanted to find out what happened to Sarah just as much as Julia did. I was already vaguely aware of the events that happened in France during the German occupation but certainly did not know the details. This story examines the choices we make in keeping things secret or bringing them into the light, and whether or not that is the right thing to do in all cases and justifies the consequences.

What a sad but effective way to learn more of the history and truth of the history of our past.

I'm surprised by some of the other reviews because I found this book to be one of the most gripping stories I've read in a long time. I actually liked the going back and forth between the two protagonist's stories -- Sarah and Julia. I felt it was an effective way to link the two women together. The link being a death and family secrets beginning in 1942 Paris. The horror of the Holocaust cannot be downplayed and this story makes that horror a more personal one. I couldn't put the book down.

A terribly beautiful book about WWII and the Holocaust from the perspective of Sarah, a 10 year old girl. Don't expect an easy read, as most Holocaust books do, it will give you chills down your spine and possibly bring you to tears. The Holocaust has caused the destruction of lives on a very broad scale, not only in concentration camps. This book will describe Sarah's life, her personal tragedy, her quest to grow and survive despite the huge burden she's carrying.

A tragic story about the little know deportation of Paris Jews in July 1942. Julia Jarmond is an American woman living in Paris. When her job as a journalist puts her in the position of writing about the notorious Vel' d'Hiv roundup. Much to her surprise, Julia finds herself drawn to this horror story and is shocked to learn that her Parisian in-laws actually moved into an apartment vacated by the roundup. Intrigued, she digs deeper and becomes obsessed with a young girl named Sarah who was a victim of the French police that terrible summer in 1942. Did Sarah manage to escape? What became of her and what was the rest of her life like? Julia is determined to find out.This book was interesting because it centered around a little-known episode in French history. However, the writing didn't feel polished and the characters were not fully fleshed out. Overall, a good read.

Although I learned some things about the plight of the Jews in France during the 1940s, I felt that the modern-day story was totally predictable. I couldn't wait for it to be over.

The book is told in alternating chapters – Sarah Starzynski, her parents and younger brother in Paris and environs during WW 2, and Julia Jarmond Tezac, an American living in Paris in 2002. Sarah and her parents were rounded up in August 1942 by the French police on orders of the occupying Nazi regime. They were held for about a week at the velodrome stadium – without food, water, toilets, beds. They were then sent via train to a detention camp, and some time later divided. Her parents are sent directly to Auschwitz (where they will be gassed), but Sarah escapes the camp and finds refuge with an elderly farm couple. She’s haunted by the fact that she left her younger brother locked in a closet – she believed she’d be back within a day or so. When she finally convinces Jules & Genevieve that she will go to Paris alone if necessary, they accompany her to her old home only to discover a new family living in the apartment, and Michel’s decomposing body in the well-hidden secret cupboard.Meantime Julia Jarmond has been given an assignment to write about the Vel’ d’Hiv’ for the 60th anniversary commemoration. She’s an American who has been in Paris for about 25 years, but has never heard of the event. She becomes obsessed with the story, and when she discovers that her husband’s family moved to the apartment the day after Sarah’s family “vacated” it, she doubles her efforts to find the truth. I was completely mesmerized by the story for the first 160 pages, because the chapters alternate between Julia’s search for the truth, and what is happening to Sarah 60 years earlier. But after Sarah returns to the apartment we no longer hear from her. The rest of the book focuses on Julia, and frankly descends into a chick lit romance drama. I thought The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, The Book Thief, and Suite Francaise were all much better books dealing with the Holocaust.

Excellent author...everything flowed smoothly...too bad history wasn't as smooth and kind.The book was about when France was occupied and specifically Vél d'Hiv when the French police were instructed to carry out the horror at the camps by the Germans...July 16, 1942, was the roundup of Parisian Jewish Citizens.It makes you cry and hope that history won't repeat itself.

Written with 2 narators, one during 1942 and one in the present. It tells the story of Sarah, a 10 year old jewish girl whose family was rounded up in July 1942. It also tells the story of Julia, an American journalist married to a frenchman and living in Paris who researches the roundup and discovers a family secret.

This was the final book that I had to read for my English 400 class on Remembering the Holocaust. This book was my favorite book of the entire course because it beautifully meshed the modern world with the world of the Holocaust. It showcased beautifully how one wants to forget the past, but often one cannot put it behind them. This book moved me several times to tears because there was a truth under all the fiction that always seemed to ring out in a loud volume. De Rosnay created a believable story here that engages the reader into the world of not one, but two very well-fleshed out female characters in Sarah Dufaour and Julia Jarmond. Their story beautifully weaves together to a life-changing conclusion for every character involved. If you want a book that will help you to feel something inside of yourself and make you better understand the world in which we all live this is a book to immediately read for that. You will not walk away from this book unchanged!

This was the final book that I had to read for my English 400 class on Remembering the Holocaust. This book was my favorite book of the entire course because it beautifully meshed the modern world with the world of the Holocaust. It showcased beautifully how one wants to forget the past, but often one cannot put it behind them. This book moved me several times to tears because there was a truth under all the fiction that always seemed to ring out in a loud volume. De Rosnay created a believable story here that engages the reader into the world of not one, but two very well-fleshed out female characters in Sarah Dufaour and Julia Jarmond. Their story beautifully weaves together to a life-changing conclusion for every character involved. If you want a book that will help you to feel something inside of yourself and make you better understand the world in which we all live this is a book to immediately read for that. You will not walk away from this book unchanged!

Started to listen to book on CD but switched between past and present and hard to tell what voice was speaking. Sad story based on truth about French aiding in the arrest and murder of thousands of Jews, and the memory lapse that followed by the French govt. and its' people.

i think i have read so many books about the mistreatment of jews, that i am not that affected by it anymore. the book was good, but the ending i thought could've used a little work.

I have never cried reading a book and this one brought me to tears. What a powerful and emotional story.

I really loved how the story went back and forth between past and present and how they intercept with each other. The story presented history that I was unaware happened as part of the Holocaust. The story is heartbreaking. It took a little time to get engaged in the book but then it was hard to put down. I really enjoyed this!

This novel kept me riveted right from the start. I had never heard of the horrible event in Paris during the war, around which the story is structured. I enjoyed the two voices, one in the past and the other in the present, telling their own stories in alternating chapters. I was disappointed when that ended about ? of the way through. I would have preferred to have heard Sarah?s own narrative continue. Some of the action seemed to be a little contrived and I sometimes felt as if the same points just kept getting hammered at me, but maybe that was the point. All in all, though, this was a fascinating, well-told story that will stay with me for some time.

Excellent! Hard to read in that people can be so mean to another person. Historical insight.

When the German's pound on her family's door and tell them to leave, Sarah locks her brother in a hidden cabinet, thinking he will be safe there until she comes back to let him out. But the Jews of Paris are rounded up and shipped off to camps. Fifty years later, an American journalist tries to unravel the mystery of the apartment she is supposed to move in to.

I liked the historical aspect of this book, but the modern day portions were a little too romantic/dramatic for my tastes. I loved learning something new about WWII, and the historical story really was heartbreaking. It was a quick read, with the positives outweighing the negatives.

This is one of those books that you wish had been written by another author. The subject matter is important and interesting and sheds light on a horrifying period in human history, but the novel simply doesn't do it justice. The writing is amateurish* and clichéd, the characters one-dimensional to the point of charicature and the author's choice of mixing up truly tragic past events with some present melodrama-rama makes the novel feel shallow and vaguely exploitative. *The worst part had to be the last chapter where the author insisted on having the first-person narrator refer to her own baby as "the child" throughout the entire chapter, presumably so that there could be a big "reveal" about her name being Sarah at the end. Except it was so clumsily done that anyone with half a brain cell could figure it out after the first sentence and so the whole thing just looked daft.

Based upon the true events surrounding the roundup of French Jews by the French police in collaboration with the Nazis in July 1942. Alternating chapters are told by a young girl whose family area victims and by a woman writing an article about the events in 2002. Engrossing account of a little-known event.

very very good book, but depressing, and I didn't love the ending. Had been on loan from Anita Jennings but definitely worth reading.

I liked the parallel story telling (Paris, July 1942 and May 2002). Sarah seemed more "real" than Julia. Vel' d'Hiv was a dark day in France's history.

There was something that really bothered me about this book though. Read this book. And then read Tracy Chevalier's Virgin Blue. In the interview with Rosnay at the end of the book, she even cites Chevalier's other book, Girl With a Pearl Earring, as one of her favorite books. The similarities between Virgin Blue and Sarah's Key are a little too much for my taste:Alternating chapters between a woman at a historically important time and a modern woman. Historical event is rather obscure, but still very important. Modern woman is transplanted from America to France and feeling out of place. Arrogant, unsupportive architect husband that is always away on business trips. Difficult pregnancies. Modern woman's obsession with historical woman. Secret research trips to the French countryside. End of marriage. Implied relationship with man that was connected to the research on the historical woman.But hey, that's probably a more common theme than I realize.Anyway. About Sarah and her key:Julia is that modern day woman mentioned before. She's American but living in Paris with her arrogant architect husband. They have one daughter, Zoe, but Julia would have loved more children. Her in-laws are stereotypical French people--basically, they have giant sticks up their asses. Classic.Julia's a reporter for a magazine for Americans living in France, Seine Scenes. Cute name, right? Julia's boss tells her to research the Vel d'Hiv for it's 60th anniversary. I know, I know. You're like Vel d'what? Me too, me too.So timeout for a history lesson 'cause the French don't like to tell us about it:It's World War II. July 16, 1942 to be more specific. The Nazis are out collecting the Jewish townfolk. The French get an order to round up some Jewish adults. Previous round ups had only collected men, so all the menfolk were hiding out. Leaving just the women and children at home. The French police were so darn eager to please and avoid Nazi intervention that they arrested the kiddos too. (The Nazis had intended for the under fifteen crowd be sent to foundations.) About 4,000 children under the age of fifteen were arrested that day. (And actually, I heard before that this was the power of Hitler. He didn't order a lot of the torture in the concentration camps. People were just really eager to please him by going above and beyond. That worked out well...) The French police reaction to the round up was described as "enthusiastic."Where does one store 13,000 Jews that have been ripped from their beds? In the stadium, of course. 13,000 people were held in the Vel d'Hiv stadium for six days. In the summer. Without food or water or bathrooms. Basically, the Vel d'Hiv was a post-Hurricane Katrina Superdome but much, much worse. All the while, the French police kept on doing their jobs. And Parisians didn't really think much about what was going on.After six sweltering days, the people were sent to Drancy, a concentration camp in the Parisian 'burbs. Yup. Right there in the 'burbs. (It's been renovated. It's now an apartment complex. Seriously. That's sick.) The men and women were immediately sent to Auschwitz. The kids were left behind. Eventually, the children were sent away to be killed, too.Back to plot:In this story, eight-year-old Sarah thinks that her family will return to their apartment later that day. She doesn't know that her family is being rounded up for a death camp. She decides to tuck her three-year-old brother into a hidden cupboard to hide. The key is hidden in her pocket. As one can imagine, Sarah is devastated by each second that she is away from her brother.After about a week, Sarah and her family are taken to Drancy. There, her father is immediately sent to Auschwitz. After a few more days, Sarah and her mother are separated. Her mother is sent on to Auschwitz. The children are told that they'll all be reunited there. Sarah ain't no fool, though. The kids' names aren't recorded. And they're not getting much food.Sarah and a girl named Rachel decide to climb under the fence to run away. What choice do they have? As Sarah is wriggling under, someone grabs her ankle and pulls her back. Lucky her, though, it's her friendly neighborhood policeman! He recognizes Sarah and encourages her to run away. He even slips her some money.After a night in the woods and a near brush with some Nazis, the girls fall asleep in a dog house. In the morning, the owner of the house finds them. Thankfully, he and his wife are sympathetic to them and take them in. Unfortunately, Rachel has developed dysentery. The couple find a doctor to treat Rachel, but the doctor ends up turning them in to the Nazis. Rachel is taken back to the camp, but Sarah is kept safe. The doctor never saw or heard about Sarah.Sarah survives the war and grows up as the couple's granddaughter. But first she gets them to take her back to Paris so she can find her brother. Awesome idea, right? Especially since it's WWII, and the Nazis frowned upon having undocumented Jewish kids running around. Luckily, Sarah's able to bribe people to let her on and off the train. I question this.That's basically what's going on at Sarah's end of things.Back to Julia and her research--She finds out from her husband's grandmother that the family's apartment was vacated in July 1942. Coincidence? Nah. Julia's father-in-law ends up telling her about this little girl that came to the apartment during WWII. She had a key for a cupboard that no had ever noticed before. By this time, it's around August or September. The father-in-law never saw what was in the cupboard, but he heard the girl shitting a brick. But mostly he remembered the smell. Julia's all ripped up about this. I can imagine why.She heads to New York to visit her family for the summer. While there, she looks up Sarah and heads to Connecticut or wherever to meet her. Without calling first. When Julia shows up, it's immediately evident that she is not talking to Sarah. Actually, it's Sarah's husband's second wife. Sarah died in the '70s.So what's the next logical step? Why, fly to Italy to find Sarah's son, Paul. He's there. He shits a brick 'cause guess what! Sarah never mentioned the whole being Jewish/having a brother/escaping a concentration camp to him! So this guy is flipping out (as one would expect) and Julia's sitting there possibly miscarrying the baby she conveniently conceived recently after years of struggle. Mmmhhm. Julia's husband was super pissed (of course!) because he finds out his wife and daughter are in Italy after receiving a phone call that Julia is in the hospital there.Julia's marriage ends. (A special thanks goes out to her husband's long-term mistress and his abort-or-divorce ultimatum!) Julia, Zoe, and the baby move to New York City. Do you know who else is recently divorced and living in New York? Why Paul, of course! And who, as Zoe predicted, was Googling Julia as she Googled him? Paul! They meet up and have coffee. He's come to terms with all that shiz that Julia laid on him. It's definitely implied that Julia and Paul may be pursuing a relationship. Which is kind of sick, considering Julia's previous obsession with his mother. Or the part where she named her new baby after Sarah. Creeepy.--Apparently, you could rent the Vel d'Hiv out for your own purposes. Sporting event, family reunion, birthday party, Nazi sponsored round up. That doesn't look good on a brochure. And thus, the building was bulldozed a few years later.--What are the chances that the police officer from Sarah's neighborhood would be the one to catch her trying to escape the camp?--The concentration camp that the people from Vel d'Hiv were sent to before Auschwitz is now an apartment complex. Yep. You, too, could rent a cell apartment to raise your family in. How wholesome!--Sarah's chapters end about halfway through the book. Disappointing! They were my favorites!I did like that all of the chapters were about two or three pages long. None of that rambling crap (that I am sooo guilty of!) that make me start to skim!--And Julia? Sometimes she was kind of boring...--Sarah's husband's second wife is from Italy. So the man had a thing for the foreign-born ladies.--Do people really just jet off to other countries on whims? I've never had a whim that awesome or the frequent flier miles to justify it.--I am not nice enough person to be a Frenchman's wife. Uh-uh. I would bust a cap at the first proof of a mistress. Not cool, dude. Not cool.

Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay, tells two intertwined stories, that of a French Jewish girl who is arrested with her family at age 10 during World War II, and that of an American woman married to a French man and living in Paris in the 2000s. In the first half of the book, the chapters alternate between the two stories, but in the second half the perspective remains solely with the contemporary story. It is a fairly quick read - I read about half of it on a 2.5 hour plane flight - and overall I mildly enjoyed it, but it did not live up to my expectations based on the "bestseller" hype.

The story of the Jewish girl, Sarah, is immensely painful and essentially does not have a happy ending. It seemed like a fairly accurate portrayal of the reality of the war for many people, but it isn't really something I personally need to be reminded of in such detail. A theme through-out the book is to not forget what happened; I can guarantee you I won't forget, and I didn't need this book to remind me. Still along the lines of the story of Sarah, I found the title a bit misleading. It implied to me that there was going to be a special, perhaps surprising, occurrence related to this key, but it quickly became clear that instead it was predictable and the most painful moment of the story. Clearly I just set myself up with incorrect expectations.

The contemporary story was mildly interesting, but fairly predictable and I didn't find that I especially connected with any of the characters. The ending was satisfying and appropriate to the plot.

Oddly, I find myself thinking of this book as "light" reading, even though it deals with some heavy topics. I am not sure what to make of that, but in any case, it is decent plane or "light" reading if you can handle some intense/painful sections.

I didn't know anything about the Vel'd'Hiv roundup until I read this book, and I applaud the author for tackling this very sad story. Overall, I really enjoyed it, but there were few surprises and the writing occasionally distracted from the story. I liked how she alternated between Sarah's story in 1942 and Julia's story in 2002, but the short chapters chopped them up too much. I would be just settling back into Sarah's world when I'd be flipped back to present-day and vice-versa. Julia's marital problems also seem incredibly insignificant when placed next to Sarah's journey.

Really, it was a great telling of a story that receives little attention in the context of WWII and the Holocaust.

There was something quite enticing about this book. Julia's husband was such a mix on contrariness. As long as things went well he was supportive but when Julia became driven to learn more about the roundup of the Jews in Paris he was distant and uninterested. I too, had some trouble with the single mindedness of Julia's quest. Their daughter Zoe seemed wise beyond here years and in many ways she stole the book. Julia seemed almost one faceted and to have lost who she was in the search to right a wrong of forgetting the Holocaust. That being said, the book was well worth reading and held my interest well.

I enjoyed Sarah's heartbreaking story. It felt like something that truly could have happened in that awful time. It was hard to read parts of the story because of the atrocities. My heart broke for Sarah. I really liked Julia and I am extremely glad that she kept the baby, and didn't give into her jerk of a husband, but there were things, well, characters more like, that I didn't like, and that is what made Julia's part more difficult. And I hated the ending. It was nice and kind of sweet, but it didn't wrap the book up in a very satisfying way. I suppose there was really no way to end this tragic story in a way that was satisfying, but I wish that I would have felt the end of the story in a more definite way.

I'm having trouble reviewing this one for some reason, so that'll have to do.