Name: Sarah's Key
ISBN: 9780786299232

Tatiana de Rosnay

Paris, July 1942: Ten-year-old Sarah is brutally arrested with her family in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, the most notorious act of French collaboration with the Nazis. But Sarah has locked her brother in their favorite hiding place and kept the key, thinking she will return soon.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's sixtieth anniversary, American journalist Julia Jarmond stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connects her to Sarah.
(back cover)

Sarah's Key

Ashton Reed

Was she out of her mind: Could she nơt hope, was that not allowed? She was ten years old and she wanted to hope, she wanted to believe, more than anything, more than life itself.

Paris, July 1942: Ten-year-old Sarah is brutally arrested with her family in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, the most notorious act of French collaboration with the Nazis. but before the police come to take them, Sarah locks her younger brother, Michel, in their favorite hiding place, a cupboard in the family's apartment. She keeps the key, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's sixtieth anniversary, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked by her Paris-based American magazine to write an article about this black day in France's past. Julia has lived in Paris for nearly twenty-five years, married a Frenchman, and she is shocked both by her ignorance about the event and the silence that still surrounds it. In the course of her investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connects her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from the terrible days spent shut in at the Vel' d'Hiv' to the camps and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Writing about the fate of her country with a pitiless clarity, Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and denial surrounding this painful episode in French history.
(front flap)

Mina

Eloquently narrated, touching, and masterfully weaved the past and the present.

Missy Zuber 

"Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life"--Page 2 of cover.

Lauren Tabor

A truly moving story. It’s heartbreaking to read stories like this but humbling to read experiences from the harsh past. Even though these were fictional characters, their story is real in the sense that so many people actually faced the horrors of the war. I wanted to read more about Sarah during her life m. I felt Julia’s story over took it a little bit. I understand why and that it all tied together nicely. I feel so sad for Sarah and everything she went through and that she never got a happy ending.

Mary Rose Luksha

3 stars for interesting plot, and (in my opinion) an individual narrative voice. 

Buuut, the story of Julia Jarmond just...didn't make sense. I never understood why she and her husband got married, they obviously didn't love each other. And how does her husband go form being a charming, sexy French dude to a paunchy middle aged whiny bitch in the course of like...6-8 weeks? And how does a person not know there spouse got fat and tired? Or maybe a person could not notice that, but then their obliviousness should be consistent with other factors in their life, which Julia's was not. I think that's what bothered me most, the inconsistency of the Julia and Bertrand. The minor characters were consistent and believable, but not the two main ones. And I suppose there are really people like her out there, but, I just personally don't want to read about them, that's my thing.

The story with Sarah was good, though I wish we could have heard about her life after she found her brother. And I understand the author did it for mystery, but that was the best story. 

All that being said, I knew nothing of the Vel D'hiv and know little of Occupied France, so that was very interesting. I just wish it was narrated by a character to whom I felt closer.

Sarah Marchant

As the preview on the back cover states, Sarah's Key is the meeting of two different worlds. Sarah's story takes place during WWII, when her life is forever changed by the Vel' d'Hiv roundup. Intermingled is the story of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in France sixty years later who is assigned to write about the roundup for her magazine's next issue. The chapters switch perspectives between Sarah and Julia until about the middle of the book, where Sarah's narrative is discontinued following a traumatic event. Even after Sarah is no longer telling her own story, Julia is unearthing pieces of the past to fill in the gaps.

This book, while not perfect, certainly does a lot of things right. It is a story relating to the Holocaust, but not from the typical angle of Hitler/the Nazis being heartless and the concentration camps being horrific. Rather, it addresses a very specific, singular event which was carried out by the French police against French people. That fact in itself is an integral part of the tragedy of Sarah's story. Not only that, but it also highlights another important aspect of this book: the comparison of American culture to French culture. The character development displays the noticeable differences between Julia's family back in the United States and her husband's family in France. Furthermore, Julia's investigation calls attention to the French (or at least Parisian) attitude regarding darker days or family secrets: they are better left in the past, undiscovered, where they won't bother anyone. This directly contradicts Julia's mindset, prompting a hefty amount of turmoil.

Woven through the overarching story is Julia's marital conflict with her husband, Bertrand. Many readers felt that this turned the story "harlequin" or "melodramatic," but I thought the author struck a good balance between the serious (the Vel' d'Hiv & Sarah's tragedy) and the sentimental (Julia's personal struggle). Julia's story also supported the underlying theme that human life is of value (which you will understand more completely if you read the book!).

Though Julia often has the best of intentions, she is also a fairly selfish protagonist. This is a human flaw and, while it rounded out her character and made her more believable, it also led to a slight lack of sympathy on my part.

Overall, this book is captivating, image-filled, informative, and heart-rending.

Emi Gilmore 

And with that, I am officially done with all the readings for my Into to Fiction class

I don't think I learned anything about fiction

But this book wasn't awful so let's give my teacher some credit. Just ignore my newly found hatred for Dr. Jenkyll and Mr. Hyde.

Katelyn Broad

A young girl leaves her brother in a cupboard and promises to come back to him as soon as she's able. Only problem is, she was taken by French police in a roundup for Jewish families known as the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup. 
Beautiful and deeply moving we follow the story of young Sarah in 1942 and the story of Julia 60 years after that as she tries to put together the pieces of Sarah's story. 
I really enjoyed this book-it was very well paced and a few twists in it to keep you interested. The history behind it was devastating-although the story itself is fiction. 
I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in the holocaust or anybody looking for a good book.

Fellowes Cynthia

Read it a long time ago. As an actress I auditioned for a small role in the movie.

Tracey O’Rourke

** spoiler alert **
           I almost quit this book in the first chapter, when it was clear that the little brother was going to die in the cabinet, but am so glad I didn't. A wonderful read.

Cathy Gonzales

Love 

mystery..love...suspense...heartbreak 
loved this book all of it from beginning to end 
the end nearly made me break down lol 

always remember never forget!

Jane K

I really liked this book. I found in the beginning a little slow but got better when the reporter started researching Sarah's story and both melded together. I didn't know that France was involved in the deporting Jews. I learned something about that part of history from reading this book. The story of Sarah was so sad and tragic. She loses both of her parents and races back to Paris to get her brother out of the cupboard only to find him dead. She lives with the guilt of not being able to get him out and decides to end her life because of this guilt. I think she had nothing to feel guilty about because she was only a child living a horrible situation with no way out except escape. When she finally escaped, it was too late.

I don't think I had ever read a Holocaust story that has left me feeling so disconnected and jaded in regards to the characters before this. The writing is shallow, bland, and the "current time" protagonist is hard to relate to and frankly annoying. A woman who has discovered that she was married in to a family that hid a Holocaust secret, that she felt the emotional burden of finding and telling the person affected of her guilt and her in-laws guilt is so hard for me to understand. What happened wasn't the fault of any of the involved parties. It was pure cruelty from a different country, form their homeland. It just rings very hollow for me. I kept thinking it was going to be over, finally, but the present day protagonist was not done complaining yet.

Had the past protagonist been built more, had there been more of an emotional connection with any of the characters, maybe this would have been better. Everything was explained in the passive, in the way someone might tell you a boring story.

(view spoiler)[
It was pretty obvious the boy was dead before she got back to him. The minute the family who rescued the girls asked how long he had been in the closet, it was known. It was a shallow scene because there was no buildup, merely factual difficulties and then the talk of the discovery.  (hide spoiler)]

Danielle H.

There are so many thoughts going through my mind upon finishing this novel. It was so heartbreaking, which I knew it would be going into the novel. I loved how the stories of Sarah and Julia intertwined.

The chapters alternate between the war era and sixty years later. We watch as Julia, a journalist, tries to find out more about what happened during the 1942 round-up of Jewish people in France. Readers also get to see the roundup as it is happening through the eyes of young Sarah. I much preferred Sarah’s story, even though I feel a tad awful saying that considering it was so horrific.

It is just so horrible to think about what the Jews, and others who were targeted during the Holocaust, went through. But events such as the Holocaust must not be forgotten. Even though this is not a real personal account of someone’s experience in the Holocaust, while reading this novel, you tend to forget that. Yes, Sarah is not real, but it feels like she is. Of the millions who died so tragically and those who managed to survive, one can imagine there were people who really went through something similar to what this fictional little girl had. And that’s what makes this story so heartbreaking, that real people suffered this way.

Julia’s story was just okay. I found myself wanting to get through her chapters just so I can go back to Sarah and read her parts. However, I felt extremely bad for her because, quite frankly, her husband was a complete arse. There were so many times I wished for evil things to happen to that man…I really cannot go into why I dislike this man, Bertrand, so much without giving a lot away but just trust me on this, if you read the book I am sure you will not be a huge fan of him either. I also was not sure I liked how the novel ended. I feel like it seemed maybe a bit rushed, like there were things left unexplained or unsaid.

Overall, this book is heartbreaking, there’s no denying that. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I really would have loved more Sarah and less Julia.

Jacklyn O’Brien 

What happened to Sarah was extremely heartbreaking and sad. But the book could have been half the length it was. As it continued I found the main characters obsession with Sarah to get annoying and make me like her less

Allyson Marrs

What a fantastic book. I'm not usually one for historical fiction, but the dual narrators and connection between the two was done well. It's such a sad, moving story that will literally bring tears to your eyes, but it's definitely worth the read.

On the anniversary of the roundup of Jews by the French police in Paris, Julia is asked to write an article on this dark episode and embarks on an investigation that leads her to long-hidden family secrets and to the ordeal of Sarah.

Krystal Pollock

Lost interest 80 pages in. Just couldn't stay focus on this one.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life. Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Kenna Armstrong

This book was actually really good, it was really hard to put down at times. Though, the beginning was kind of slow. I wish we could have more of Sarah's story from her point if view, but that's just my opinion. 

Story Line: It was slow getting into it, but it was alright. Not my favorite but it was still good. */** (1/2 stars)

Characters: The characters were very well written, no one made me hate them completely, but I didn't like a few as people. **/** (2/2 stars)

Cover: The cover is, as usual, beautiful for this story. I love it!(: */* (1/1 star)

Overall : ****/***** (4/5 stars)

Elad Schulman

I'm a big fan of books set during World War 2, but this one took place around an event that I didn't even know about. The event was incredible, and in the end, I had goosebumps. The dialogue writing was a little lacking, but everything else was incredible.

Sara 

** spoiler alert **
           I originally read this book for school, but as I kept reading, I found out that I really, really liked it, though the ending was sad

Andrea McGuffey

So sad (I cried at the beginning, middle and end) but so incredibly good. I couldn't put it down.

Naveen Sheik

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door-to-door arresting French families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard-their secret hiding place-and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.

Sixty Years Later: Sarah's story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist investigating the roundup. In her research, Julia stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah, and to questions about her own romantic future.
(back cover)

Sarah's Key

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