Sarah's Key

WOW!! That`s all I can say about this book!

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.

I liked this book. The history was interesting and the story good. Just like in the story sometimes the past will draw people together and sometimes tear them apart.

I kept shunting this one to the bottom of the pile, as I wasn't enthused about diving into a WWII Holocaust story. Because of the good reviews, I tossed it into the book bag and dragged it along with me on my last roadtrip. Glad I did - I couldn't put it down. It's a depressing topic, but well told, and covered an aspect of the Holocaust I was unaware of.

Heartbreaking

Wow! I never had heard of the deportation of Jewish families by the French police. This novel was readable -a quick and compelling story. There were some elements that seemed contrived - Julia's adulterous husband and the quick ending to their marriage.

blergh. I am not sure whether I'm appalled or amazed at the chutzpah of entwining a love story with an exploration of the Vel' d' Hiv' roundup and deportation. And the author's choice to maker her protagonist an American is an interesting one–but one, I think, somewhat at odds with her message regarding France's blindspot to the atrocities of Vichy. The two-dimensional French and American families that populate the margins don't add much to the book. The writing is flat. The “love” story is just odd. Blergh.

Somehow I wound up with two copies of this book. That should have been a clue that I needed to read it, but it sat on my shelf for about a year and a half before I picked it up. (I blame the cover art.) This historical fiction novel had dual storylines, chronicling the lives of both an 10-year-old girl in the 1940s and a present-day, middle-aged American, both living in Paris. Ten-year-old Sarah's family is Jewish, and the French police have come to arrest her entire family and 13,000 other Jews in the area to take them to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a stadium used as a holding place before the Jews were transferred to concentration camps in both France and Poland. Sarah does not understand the implications of the police's arrival at her door, and hides her 4-year-old brother by locking him in a cupboard, promising to return for him. In 2002, journalist Julia Jarmond is living in Paris, working on a piece commemorating the 60th anniversary of what has become known as the Vél' d' Hiv' roundup. She is shocked at how little she knew about the city she had been residing in for 25 years, and even more shocked that the French people want to completely forget any responsibility they had in the roundup. In her research, Julia discovers Sarah's family, and — haunted by their story — determines to find out what happened to the little girl that disappeared from the historical records.

Summary in seven words: First half okay. Second half bad. Last eighth awful.

Something doesn't add up here.

Expanded summary—

Sarah's Key tells two stories. One is the story of the Starzynski's, a Jewish family, victims of the Holocaust. The other is of the Tézac family, a family of blahs and quacks, whines and cheeses. The first half of the novel alternates between their two stories. The Starzynski plot is encased in intrigue, suspense, and heart, while the Tézac plot is a bucket of cliches and constant whining. Unfortunately, the second half of the novel follows the Tézac family solely.

Sarah Starzynski's story is good, not great, but definitely good. The writing was simplistic, the plot at time's predictable, but the story itself helped boost the novel's faults. Why her story had to be tainted with the wishy-washy whining of Julia, the corny almost-perfect Zoë, and the ridiculously pompous rants of Bertrand is beyond me. I didn't care about their struggles, because in the face of the Starzynski trials, the Tézac's “problems” didn't amount to much.

Spending the majority of the novel on the Tézac family was a bad choice. Making the novel's many French characters into the bad guys—the American characters, the good guys—was a bad choice (and slightly odd considering the author's French nationality). Using words like incredulous at every single opportunity (there's a drinking game here) was a bad choice. While I, the unpublished novelist, hate to say it, there is just too much poor writing and too many mistakes made to lift this story beyond mediocre.

The concluding scenes of Sarah's Key almost lowers the novel past mediocre. I was tempted to drop it to two stars, but didn't feel that would be fair to judge the work so harshly for such a small part. Much of it is unnecessary. The author's constant references to “the baby,” “ Zoë's sister,” “the child,” et cetera, were ridiculous—if the reader doesn't know the baby's name with absolute certainty by that time, the reader wasn't reading very carefully. No, strike that, if the reader doesn't know that baby's name, they must have been reading another book all along. For de Rosnay to try to trick the reader, hoping for an emotional response, is a great mistake—she may as well announce that her reader's are too ignorant. to figure out any of the novel's simple equations.

Sarah's Key was unbalanced and poorly constructed. It could have been so much better. Unfortunately, when piling problems on top of problems a story has the tendency to fall apart and the reader is left with the pieces, hoping they can piece them all back to together and make something sensible. Again, something just doesn't add up here.

I read this in one day. The story kept me enthralled and I needed to know what happened to Sarah and her brother.

This book was wonderfully written and was hard to put down. I was so tired that I could barely hold my eyes open but I couldn't stop reading. I couldn't stop thinking about the story and the characters, past and present although the relationship of woman in the present is a bit distant and cold. The book is sad but the story is enveloped in so much mystery that you don't want to stop until you have all the answers - until the secret is not a secret any longer. I learned a bit about France while reading this book. I used the internet to look up unfamiliar terms, see pictures of places and to hear French words pronounced. I feel like I just got back from a trip to Paris but with a heavy heart.

I loved this book. I was hooked from the beginning. A must read.

Oh dear. I hate going against the flow of public opinion, but this book was just not my kind of read. I got through the first few chapters, thinking it was going to get better. It didn't. Finally, I decided to jump to the end, to see what was going to happen. The ending intrigued me enough that I jumped to the middle and read a few chapters there. Back to the near end to see how the relationship played out. Then back toward the front to pick up where I'd initially stopped....Well, you see where this goes.

Not sure this counts as a read, given that I read the front, the end, the middle, the end, the middle, the front. But I feel I read enough to warn the wary: This is a hyped-book that did not (for me) live up to the hype. The writing (the translation?) felt like it was a color-by-the-numbers story.